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diff --git a/old/67186-0.txt b/old/67186-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 164a323..0000000 --- a/old/67186-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8688 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Rider of the Mohave, by James Fellom - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Rider of the Mohave - -Author: James Fellom - -Release Date: January 17, 2022 [eBook #67186] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images - made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE *** - - - -THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE - -A Western Story - -By JAMES FELLOM - -A. L. BURT COMPANY - -Publishers--New York - -Published by arrangement with Chelsea House - -Printed in U. S. A. - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Copyright, 1924 - -By CHELSEA HOUSE - -The Rider of the Mohave - -(Printed in the United States of America) - -All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign -languages, including the Scandinavian. - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - -To those who, having paid the penalty for their misdeeds, seek to -regain their places in the ranks of the law-abiding, this book is -sympathetically dedicated - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - -CONTENTS - - Prologue He Rides by Night - I Mania and Dreams - II The Man Hunter - III In Which Wills Collide - IV Lemuel Yields - V The Wherewithal - VI Aftermath - VII Startling Predicaments - VIII Lavender and Old Lace - IX Evidence to Convict - X A Disclosure - XI Outwitted - XII Reputations at Stake - XIII Sinister Forebodings - XIV An Episode in the Hills - XV The Potent Influence - XVI The Hand of Quintell - XVII One Silent Night - XVIII Skulking Shadows - XIX An Enemy in the Ranks - XX Geerusalem Stirs - XXI The Law and the Lawless - XXII A Showdown - XXIII The Uprising - XXIV Warburton Gets Square - --------------------------------------------------------------------- - - -THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE - -PROLOGUE—HE RIDES BY NIGHT - -It was three in the morning, but Geerusalem had not yet closed its -eyes. There was too much undug gold in the hills; it was too -handy—too easy come, easy go; the days, too short; the pleasures, -too wanton, too alluring. The camp of Geerusalem promenaded, -gambled, danced, fought, debauched the night away, waiting for -to-morrow. Far out on desolate Soapweed Plains, rose the -intermittent, yelping wail-bark of a coyote. - -The back door of a little store that fronted on the main street -opened cautiously. The interior of what was a kitchen was dark; the -flower-garden yard into which it gave, was also dark. The shadowy -form of a man emerged and halted; he peered carefully about through -the gloom. A smaller figure followed, pausing on the threshold—a -woman, her white apron and snowy hair quite visible. The man turned, -took her in his arms impulsively, and held her close to his breast. - -“Don’t you worry, ma. I’ll be droppin’ round again, two weeks from -to-night—sure’s sic ’em!” he whispered, as he kissed her. - -The woman wept softly. “Oh, Jerome, darling, why don’t you quit this -awful thing?” she sobbed, clinging to him. “Don’t you know how my -heart’s just breaking?” - -“Too late, ma. I oughter’ve quit ’fore I begun. If I started -quittin’ now, they wouldn’t let me, would they? But I’m tellin’ you; -don’t think about me. They can’t ketch me. I’ve bin goin’ it three -years, ain’t I? Well, then, when you see Tinnemaha Pete, tell him to -leave you a chunk of that ore. An’ see that he don’t tell nobody -about findin’ it. I figger it’s a bonanza. Mebby, that’ll mean -better days. Well, we’ll see what’s doin’. Now, I’d better be -scootin’, honey. An’ don’t you worry, see?” He kissed her again, -tenderly, many times, breathing his last injunction into her ear. - -A few seconds later he had slipped like a shadow across the yard and -was stealing out of an alleyway between two adobe buildings, heading -for the back street. That street was black, deserted, the nocturnal -population of the camp confining itself to the bright lights and -attractions that converted the one business thoroughfare into a -brilliant avenue, noisy with ribald merrymaking and adventure. - -Near by stood his horse. He reached it and, with a vigilant glance -about, threw back one of the flaps of his saddlebags and plunged a -rummaging hand inside. It came forth with a folded piece of wrapping -paper and several nails he had placed there the day before. - -With a reckless chuckle, he wound his bandanna around his face -leaving only his eyes exposed; then he mounted and rode off to the -next cross street, and thence to the brilliantly lighted hub of the -town. The bulletin board of the Geerusalem _Searchlight_, an -afternoon newspaper, loomed big and black on the edge of the -sidewalk, in the full glare of window lights. It was one of those -moments when the immediate vicinity was clear of promenaders. - -Seeing this, the rider spurred over to the bulletin board, unfolded -the sheet of wrapping paper, and nailed it on the black surface with -the butt of his six-shooter. Then, he caracoled his horse about, -fired a volley into the air and, throwing the whole strength of his -lungs into a wild howl, waved his hat to a crowd of men standing -before the Miners’ Hotel, and dashed away around the nearest street -corner, bound for the lonely, trailless reaches of the Mohave Desert -far to the south. - -The horde of curious night revelers swarming to the spot, a few -seconds later, read with varying degrees of emotion the rough -printed notice on the bulletin board: - - I bin lookin three year for Sheriff Warburton an cant find him. - Ill give $5,000 to git akquainted with the county fameous - detektive. - - Your lovin bandit, - Billy Gee. - - -CHAPTER I—MANIA AND DREAMS - -Lemuel Huntington had told himself a thousand times that his Dot -must have an education. He had long since become infatuated with the -notion. It had him gripped as tenaciously as the seductive toils of -romance had the imaginative Dot enmeshed. It was a consuming mania -with him. - -“If I got to steal the money, she’s goin’ to college—the dream of -her darlin’ dead mother. S’help me, I’ll turn thief if I got to!” - -Lemuel, the failure, was fifty-one—the age when most men begin to -slow down, whether they want to or not. Twenty years before, he and -his little bride had left a perfectly good living in Iowa to try a -short cut to fortune in California. The fact that more often than -not distance is a most captivating beckoner, did not occur to these -happy newlyweds until they reached the Golden State and found that a -tremendous army—also seeking sudden wealth—had preceded them, and -was daily being augmented by regiments of recruits from the four -corners of the globe. - -The discovery appalled them—their capital being alarmingly small; -and nearly two years of drifting from little town to little town, -just managing to get by, took the heart out of them. - -Then, one day, Lemuel brought home news of a tract of government -land known as Soapweed Plains, on the north rim of the Mohave -Desert, with enticing reports of rich mineral belts in the adjacent -mountain ranges. It looked like the opportunity for which they had -waited. They would homestead, and in a few years Huntington would be -a name indelibly branded on the cattle industry of the State. And -there was the further golden prospect of rich mines! - -Packing their few belongings, husband and wife bought tickets to the -dismal wind-whipped station of Mirage, on the Mohave & Southwestern -Railroad, and spent two everlasting days shooing a trinity of -stubborn burros over a hell waste, into the new land of promise. But -again the captivating beckoner had tricked them. Soapweed Plains was -a sweltering realm of sagebrush, sand and sidewinders, twenty-five -miles wide, divided off from the rest of the desert universe by a -horseshoe barricade of saw-edge peaks and table mountains that -abutted a sky-line mesa to the south—and by serenading coyotes by -night. - -In despair, the Huntingtons filed on two quarter sections of sand -and rubble, the west side of their claims overlapping a bunch-grass -hill; the narrow strip on the east was handy to those scant benefits -of irrigation so grudgingly bestowed by the tepid -disappearing-reappearing Mohave River. Here, at least, they might -coax a living out of the soil, said Lemuel dolefully. It was a -permanent anchorage, if nothing more, sighed his wife. And they -started grubbing away a site for a home and killing the sidewinding -rattlesnakes. - -Soon, they found that the potato thrived, as did the melon and -alfalfa; found, too, that it was a paradise for bees. They contrived -to get a cow and heifer, a span of desert-broke horses, and a -rattletrap buckboard. Prospectors learned about the Huntington ranch -and, finding it handier to go there after certain commodities than -to far-off Mirage, began patronizing it. Its popularity grew. As a -result, Lemuel added a stock of bacon, beans, condensed milk, sugar, -matches, and such staple supplies to his assorted farm products, and -reaped a comfortable profit therefrom. - -Then Dot came—and the lonely brush ranch became the nucleus of -Lemuel and Emily’s resurrected hopes, for they began planning -wonderful things for their first-born, and, not the least among -these things, an education that would make her a great lady of -accomplishments some day. - -But the years dragged by, one after the other, in that -out-of-the-way land, so woefully lacking in -transportation—empty-handed years almost, that held out scarcely -more than a possibility at any time that those precious plans of -theirs would ever be fulfilled. It would take a fat purse indeed to -send Dot to select Longwell Seminary in San Francisco and keep her -there in becoming luxury until she blossomed forth a chosen daughter -of California’s élite. - -When Dot was twelve her brave little mother died, and for a long -time afterward, Lemuel went about like a man desperately searching -for something he had lost without knowing just what it was. His -resurrected hopes died with her, and were buried. Everything slowed -down to a point where he merely held on to a bare living for himself -and his child. - -To-day, he was a failure, that child eighteen, while the only -remaining echo of the precious plans to make Dot a grand lady was -this secret wild mania of his, seething in the core of his brain, to -see that daughter educated before they laid him beside the trim -little grave in the garden. - -Perhaps it was this same mania of his that now led him to haunt the -nearest place where brains forgathered—the gold camp of Geerusalem, -four miles northeast of the Huntington ranch—and to get to -hobnobbing with its insolent brotherhood of mining engineers, -promoters, assayers, and attorneys—a type of individual that looms -up in the mind of the crude Southwest as prodigious as totem poles, -omniscient and omnipotent. - -Whatever it was that made Lemuel enjoy being the butt of this uppish -fraternity’s quips and sneers, and come back regularly for more, -hardly matters. Month in and month out, as often as he could get -away from the ranch, he would saddle a horse and ride to Geerusalem, -and spend the day strutting around with the forty-five caliber -brains of the camp. Accordingly, day after day, Dot, the -imaginative, was left to herself and the weaving of her wistful, -romantic dreams. - -She was a bright little body, this eighteen-year-old daughter of -Lemuel, the failure; face so frank and sensitive, hair so soft and -wavy and glossy, throat so round and smooth. Her eyes were large and -brown, and sometimes quite sad from gazing too long into the -monotonous distances out of whose blue haze nothing of living -substance ever came. She had grown to charming young womanhood, but -she still retained the fanciful mind of her pinafore days—the little -story-teller had survived as her playmate, Frank Norris would have -said—with all a youngster’s fascination for impossible stories of -impossible beings. - -She would sit by the hour dreaming of handsome blond heroes rescuing -beautiful maidens from the clutches of Tatarian villains, with -wicked flowing black mustaches and bushy eyebrows, of magnificent -daredevil bandits succoring helpless widows and orphans, of -notorious Billy Gee even, about whose wild, desperate exploits up -and down the Mohave and Colorado Deserts she had heard so much, of -hairbreadth escapes, furious bloody duels, and brilliant weddings. - -The isolated ranch was an ideal spot for the painting of just such -thrilling mind pictures. She could sit on the front porch and look -across the gray desolation of plain that stretched to the violet and -yellow scallop of range twenty miles eastward, and visualize in that -void of undulating air currents every scene her fertile imagination -conjured up for her. She lived those scenes, every one of them. They -were big moments in her life; palpitating, vivid moments—moments -that made her dreary, humdrum existence worth while to her. - -“Nothing ever happens out here,” she would sometimes murmur to the -eternal sameness of the plains. “Nobody ever comes this way, even. I -wish daddy would sell the ranch and move to Geerusalem or -somewhere—where things happen, where people laugh and talk and -visit.” - -On a number of occasions, Lemuel had found her sitting on the front -porch, musing into the solitudes, eyes brilliant, cheeks aglow, her -parted lips moving. - -“Gosh, what a pity!” he had lamented to himself each time, as he -went tiptoeing away. “It’s them fine brains of hers workin’. I tell -you, Em’ly, wife, she’s goin’ to be the great lady you figgered on, -if I got to sell my soul to do it. I’m jest watchin’ for a chanct. -You wait an’ see!” - - -It was well on toward noon of an August day. A fiery sun was -churning the floor of Soapweed Plains into a stormy ocean of heat -waves. Lemuel had gone to Geerusalem on his customary hobnobbing -expedition. Dot, her housework completed, sat reading in the shade -of the passion-flower vine that trellised the porch, a novel -borrowed from Mrs. Agatha Liggs, a widow who kept a small dry goods -store in the camp. - -Suddenly, breaking on the dead silence like muffled shots, came the -sound of hoofs. Dot dropped her book and sprang to her feet -expectantly, for the riders who passed that way, bound to and from -the unimportant desert station of Mirage, were few indeed and far -between. The next instant she was staring at a lone horseman -approaching, not along the road but from across country, from the -direction of the violet and yellow scallop of range that formed the -magical setting of all her romantic dreams! - -She stared in unbelief, amazed for the moment. Then she noticed that -he was hatless, that the whole side of his head, the whole front of -his dirty, white shirt, were crimson with blood, that he reeled -drunkenly, lifelessly in the saddle. - -Aghast at the spectacle, she gazed on, rooted to the spot, until the -exhausted horse stumbled up to the barred gate and stopped, -drooping, rocking on quivering legs. Out of the gate she darted -then, threw down the bars and led the animal up to the house, her -heart fluttering with excitement and horror. - -The rider was in a half swoon, mumbling thickly. Above his right ear -was a long, bloody furrow, like the plow of a bullet. The bandanna -he had had for a bandage had slipped down over his face, neglected. -It was saturated. He had been bleeding for hours, was her horrifying -thought. A glance told her that he was a stranger. That same glance -informed her that he was probably twenty-five, fairly good-looking -even through his coating of dust and blood, and that he wore a -double cartridge belt and a brace of six-shooters, one of which he -still held gripped in his hand. - -Ordinarily, she would have been quite unable to handle the dead -weight he represented, but now she managed to drag him out of the -saddle and into the house without being particularly conscious of -the effort. She got him on the parlor lounge finally and plunged -into the work of bathing his wound and dressing it. Then she tore -away his sodden shirts, replaced them with two of her father’s, and -brought a dipper of water and poured it in little swallows down his -throat. - -Seating herself in a chair beside him, she looked him over -curiously, studied him. Who was he? What was he? The wound? Under -less shocking circumstances, it was quite probable he would have -proved a big treat to her vivid imagination. But now there somehow -seemed to be too much tragic reality about him to make her care to -commit him and his plight to the wild flings of fancy. - -At last he opened his eyes and stared up at her vaguely. They were -blue eyes. There was an odd, hunted glint in them, a smolder of -recklessness, a shadow of sadness, exhaustion. He raised an -uncertain hand to his bandaged head. He glanced around the room, -then back at her, his wits clearing suddenly. - -“Where am I? Whose—whose place is this?” he jerked out, with an -effort. - -“This is Lemuel Huntington’s ranch. I’m his daughter, Dot.” She -thought a queer interest leaped into his eyes at the information. -“You must be quiet, now. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but you’ll be -all right,” she went on, when he did not speak. “If I fixed you -something, could you eat?” She rose from her chair. - -But he detained her, in a sudden spasm of apprehension. “My—my -saddlebags! I—they——” he faltered hoarsely. - -“They’re safe outside,” she nodded. “Do you want them?” - -“Please, sister. Bring ’em here. Hurry! I—I want ’em handy.” - -She ran out of the front door to the horse which still stood, -untethered, on sagging legs. Unfastening the leather containers, she -carried them into the house. She remarked that while they were not -especially heavy, they bulged to capacity, their flaps buckled -securely. She remarked also the man’s relief at sight of them and -how profusely he thanked her. Then he instructed her to stow them -under the head of the lounge and asked her for a drink of water. But -when she returned with a dipperful, she found him sunk into a sleep -of exhaustion. Whereupon she darkened the room, closed the door -quietly behind her, and went outside again to look after the spent -horse. - -Watering the animal, she tied it in a stall in the barn to feed. -Then she inspected the stranger’s saddle carefully. It was typical -of the parts, without an identifying mark of any kind upon it, -except splashes of dried blood. Presently she fastened the barn door -and reëntered the house. Her mysterious patient still slept. It was -a few minutes past noon, and she sat down to her customary -warmed-over meal in the kitchen, but she could not eat. - - -CHAPTER II—THE MAN HUNTER - -As has been said, Dot Huntington was, notwithstanding her eighteen -years, a child of romance. She had been “living scenes” ever since -her mother told her the first bed-time story in the long, long ago. -She had wished so many, many times in the past that something really -thrilling might happen to her—a big, exciting adventure. At this -moment she felt that that thrilling something had at last happened. -Here was that big, exciting adventure begun. It was all like one of -her tremendous, wonderful dreams come true. - -She quivered rapturously in the realization that she was a -flesh-and-blood factor in some great tragic mystery, that, hero or -villain, this sick, wounded man was her patient, dependent on her. A -surge of pity swept suddenly into her heart at the thought; an odd -sense of responsibility followed, bringing with it a subtle -gratification she keenly welcomed. - -She told herself that this stranger had ridden in out of that vast -mystic horizon where all her dreams had taken shape—like any one of -the impossible beings she visualized—looking for attention, care, -succor. Yes, she would heed his call—whether he was good or bad. -Why, indeed, should she question the moral status of a man half -dead? She sat for a long time, her warmed-over meal cold, ruminating -thus. How he must have suffered out in that awful wilderness of sand -and furnace heat! - -Then again came the sound of approaching hoofs. - -Starting up out of her chair, she listened. It was the gait of a -fresh horse. If it were her father returning early from camp? If it -were somebody else? She had not given this phase of the matter a -thought. She had lost sight of embarrassing consequences developing. -Now vague fears she could not analyze began to assail her. - -The hoofs had fallen into a trot, had come to a halt out on the -road, ere she flitted through the house, reached the front door and -peered cautiously out. A man had just dismounted at the gate. He -also was a stranger, a big, broad man about fifty, wearing a -split-crown sombrero, unusually wide of brim, and baggy trousers -stuffed into high-heeled boots. He too was coated with the dust of -long riding, his iron-gray mustache almost invisibly white with it, -his six-shooter holsters standing out from his hips. - -In the act of lowering the bars, he stooped to examine something on -the ground. His appearance, coupled with this last suspicious move, -sufficed to stamp him an officer of the law, even though he was not -wearing his identifying star of authority. - -Dot watched him a few seconds, reasoning that were he an officer, he -undoubtedly hailed from San Buenaventura, the county seat, as she -was well acquainted with the constable and deputy sheriffs who made -their headquarters in Geerusalem. With this decision, she closed the -door, locked it, and rushed into the parlor. Her patient was -sleeping heavily. She shook him by the shoulder. - -“Wake up! Wake up! There’s a—a sheriff outside!” she whispered -hoarsely into his ear. - -He scrambled off the lounge in a panic, wild-eyed, groggy, a curse -bursting from his lips. - -“Y’sure? Why in hell—— Git back, an’ let me at him! I’ll give him——” -He fumbled feebly for his six-shooters, reeled off his balance, and -tumbled over backward on the lounge. His gaze fastened on her, -horrible with appeal. “You wouldn’t feed me to that buzzard—this -way—would you, sister? Gimme an even break with the——” he gasped -out. - -A strange ominous fire was playing in Dot’s eyes. She was pale, but -dangerously calm. She leaned over him and caught him quickly around -the middle with her right arm. - -“Come! Stand up! He won’t dare go into my room.” - -He blundered to his feet, then through the small dining room and into -her own quarters, adjoining the kitchen, she finally staggered with -him and helped him onto her bed. - -“Not a sound, now!” she warned. - -“I’ll never ferget you for this, Miss—Miss Huntington,” he said -hoarsely. - -She closed the door after her as she went out, locked it, and -hurriedly arranged her appearance before the wall glass in the -kitchen. Then she threw on a sunbonnet and took a glistening -something out of a drawer in the cupboard. She walked out of the -back door, just as the stranger, having finished his investigations -at the gate, approached along the driveway, leading his horse. He -touched his hat to her as she came in view around the corner of the -house, one hand hidden in the folds of her skirt. - -“I jest dropped in to get a swaller of water for Chain Lightnin’—if -you don’t mind,” he said pleasantly. “It’s right hot travelin’.” - -“I shouldn’t wonder. Help yourself.” She indicated the trough near -by. She looked him over, with obvious suspicion. - -While his horse drank, the visitor’s eyes wandered apparently -aimlessly over the vicinity; they took in the girl, the buildings, -the fresh hoofprints in the mud around the trough. He even hearkened -to the munching of an animal in the barn—hungry munching, that was. -Presently he sauntered back to her and halted a step away. - -“You didn’t happen to see a feller ride by this way an hour or so -ago, miss? Mighta looked shot—bleedin’ bad?” he said, watching her -narrowly. - -She nodded. “About two hours ago—yes. Are you——” - -“By that you mean, he come an’ went—is that it?” - -“I said he _was_ here, not he _is_ here, sir,” she parried, with -emphasis. - -He burst into a heavy chuckle, mopped his red face, but kept his -hawklike eye riveted on her. “I see. Of course, if he was here you’d -jest nacherly out with it, sence they ain’t no reason why you -shouldn’t, eh?” - -“Well, I declare! You’re awfully clever. You’ve read my -mind—almost,” she exclaimed, giving him a radiant, tantalizing -smile. - -He winced and changed his tactics. When he spoke again it was in a -well-assumed, worried confidential tone. - -“Poor Bill! He bled like a stuck pig. I see it out by the gate. -Y’see, miss, me an’ him’s old pals. He gets in a little scrimmich -las’ night, an’ a depity sheriff whangs away at him. I bin’ tryin’ -to ketch up with him sence about nine this mornin’. I’m dead anxious -to——” - -“It’s too bad,” interrupted Dot. “Really, if I’d known that, I’d -have insisted on him waiting for you.” He caught the sly derision in -her voice, and his jaws set. - -“I see you got his hoss in the barn. I s’pose you presented him with -a fresh one an’ fixed him up so’s he could go on comf’table?” - -“Why, yes! I bandaged his head for him. That was the Christian thing -to do, don’t you think? And that poor horse couldn’t have lasted him -into Geerusalem. But how in the world did you ever guess——” - -“How far is that?” - -“Geerusalem? Four miles.” - -“That’s about where he’s steerin’ for, don’t you reckon?” he asked -shrewdly. - -She flashed him another smile. “That’s just what I was going to ask -you. How should I know his business? Being his old pal, you’re doing -a lot of funny questioning, it seems to me.” - -He flushed angrily. “You know consid’rable more than you let on, -miss,” he said harshly, his eyes narrowing to pin points. “They -ain’t no hoss went out that gate sence he come in here. Somebody -ridden out before, but you helped this galoot outer the saddle an’ -tramped over the other tracks. You can’t make no sucker outer me. -Come through, now!” - -She laughed daringly. “There’s more than one way of getting off this -ranch—fast, stranger. I’ve had bother enough with one scamp already, -without wasting breath on his partner.” She took a sudden step away -from him, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her -skirt came forth, holding a revolver. “Travel! Get out and hunt for -your friend, before I give you a place to bandage!” - -The unexpectedness of her action took him quite by surprise. He -gazed hard at her for a few seconds, then he changed fronts with -amazing rapidity. He began to grin broadly. - -“Of co’se, you don’t know who you’re talkin’ to, miss, or you -wouldn’t jerk a gun——” - -“I’m talking to another scalawag. Are you traveling, or do you want -what the deputy sheriff gave him?” - -There was no doubting her earnestness. Firmness of purpose was -stamped on her face, shone from her eyes. The man saw it. - -“Why, I’m Sheriff Warburton, of San Buenaventura County, young -lady,” he said rather awkwardly. - -Dot had been looking straight at him, hard, inimically. Now, as he -made known his identity, she also changed front. She wavered -suddenly, amazement, pleasure, unbelief struggling across her face. -She lowered the revolver and broke into a musical laugh. - -“Sheriff Bob Warburton! Are you really? Sheriff? I’m Lemuel -Huntington’s daughter, Dot.” - -His eyes flew wide open. A snort of astonishment burst from him. His -ruddy countenance expanded into a great warm smile. - -“Lem’s daughter!” he exploded. “Get away! Well, I’ll be -reediscongariconficated! Not that leetle knee-high tike I seen in -Jupiter—le’s see, how many years ago was that? Well now, wouldn’t -that bust you!” He grabbed her hand. “An’ this is Lem’s ranch, eh? -Bless his heart! Where’s the good ol’ hoss thief?” - -Presently she said: “Won’t you come inside, Sheriff Warburton, and -let me fix you a little bite? You must be hungry——” - -“By George! I jest hate to refuse that, Dot. I sure am hungry, but I -got to git along.” He grinned slyly as he added: “My time’s all took -up chasin’ this pardner of mine who you was so horspitable to.” - -“Never mind. You’re liable to get shot gallivanting over the plains -without your star and telling such awful whoppers to defenseless -young women,” she warned him, with mock gravity. - -“I’m more liable to, wearin’ it an’ tellin’ the truth, Dot. This -galoot is a stick-up—bad clean through. I hear he’s got folks in -these parts an’ I figgered you might be—well, mebby his sister. -You’ll forgive my bein’ a leetle rough, Dot, but I——” - -“If you’ll forgive my taking care of a wounded man and asking no -questions, Sheriff Warburton. You were quite correct about him not -leaving by the front gate. But there’s another gate in the north -corner of the field, opening on the road between Geerusalem and -Colony Town.” - -“I was dead sure I was right. You can’t fool me on hoss tracks, Dot. -Well, I’m goin’ on into Geerusalem first, to dig up a posse. Reckon -I might see Lem. Anyway, tell him I’m comin’ out before I go back, -to see how he’s behavin’ hisself.” - -As he was riding out along the driveway he turned in his saddle and -grinned at her. - -“You got too big a heart, Dot. If you’d a-hung onto that pardner of -mine, you’d ’a’ collected ten thousand dollars reeward—cash down.” -He tapped the breast pocket of his corduroy coat as he spoke. - - -CHAPTER III—IN WHICH WILLS COLLIDE - -For a long time after Sheriff Warburton rode away, Dot followed him -with her eyes. Not until he was but a wisp of dust in the gray -distance, did she turn to reënter the house. She was considerably -shaken by the ordeal, relieved that it was over. Ten thousand -dollars reward, he had said. A fortune! What a store of untold -pleasures it would buy—surcease of worry, regeneration! Thoughtfully -she walked to her room and unlocked the door. The fearful eyes of -the fugitive fastened on hers questioningly. - -“He’s gone. It was Sheriff Warburton. He’s hunting for you—to arrest -you.” She said this in quiet tones. - -“I—I don’t know how to thank you, Miss Huntington,” he stammered -huskily. “My—my own mother couldn’t ’a’ done more. I ain’t -deservin’. I’m no good. I’ll never ferget you as long as I live.” A -strange spasm crossed his face. He settled feebly back on the bed, -the tears coursing down his cheeks in little rivulets. - -“There now! Don’t think about it,” she said gently. “I’ll fix you -something to eat. Then you can sleep. But my father must not even -suspect that you are here, understand? To-night, when you’re -stronger, I’ll help you out of the house. I’ll spread a few blankets -in the hayloft for you. You’ll be safe there.” - -She made to leave the room, but he stopped her. - -“Would you mind gettin’ me them—them saddlebags ag’in, Miss -Huntington? An’—an’ keep ’em by me, won’t you? I got things in ’em -I—I can’t afford to lose, so to speak.” - -For the second time Dot obeyed his request, bringing the bulging -twin leather pouches from under the parlor lounge and storing them -under the head of the bed. Now, she began to wonder curiously what -they contained. While she prepared him his meal she still wondered. -Of a sudden it dawned on her that in her nervousness and excitement -she had forgotten to ask Sheriff Warburton about the fugitive—who he -was, the nature of his crime, everything. What if she should be -harboring a murderer? The thought chilled the blood in her veins. It -filled her with apprehension, misgivings—horrified her. She turned -it over in her mind, deciding finally that she would not allow -herself to believe it. He was not the type who would kill a man, of -that she became firmly convinced. A murderer must have something of -viciousness stamped on his face, she fancied. The result of these -reflections made her resolve to ask her patient about himself. There -was no great hurry. He could not leave inside of several days -anyway. - -Later that afternoon she gathered together a number of old blankets -and quilts, and spread a bed for the wounded fugitive in an obscure -corner of the hayloft under the eaves of the barn. She hid the -blood-spattered saddle. Then she drove the exhausted horse to wander -with their handful of stock in the far end of the field. - -Around five o’clock she made out her father galloping home along the -road from camp. Giving the outlaw a few specific instructions she -ran out beyond the gate to meet Lemuel as was her custom. But -Huntington had no smile for his daughter to-day. She marked the ill -humor in his face, the hard, accusing look he gave her, and half -suspected the reason. - -A tall, angular, wiry man was Lemuel Huntington, a sprinkle of gray -in his hair and mustache, a countenance more pathetic than -aggressive. Association with Geerusalem’s uppish fraternity had -inspired him to assume its dashy swagger garb—stiff-brim gray -Stetson, corduroy suit, his trousers stuffed into yellow, laced, -three-quarter boots resplendent with steel buckles, his coat, -box-pleated and belted à la Norfolk. Just now, as he rode up, -scowling on Dot, he looked more the prosperous mining man of -sectional influence than the humble, unimportant rancher he really -was. - -“What’s this talk of you side-kickin’ it with a bandit, Dot?” he -began sharply as he dismounted. - -“I suppose you’ve met Sheriff Warburton, and he’s told you——” - -“Yes, I did. He says you helped Billy Gee git away, patched him up, -give him a hoss, an’——” - -“Billy Gee!” she gasped aloud. Her patient was the notorious -desperado who, for years, had terrorized the border settlements far -to the south! - -“Yes—Billy Gee. He stuck up the paymaster’s car of the Mohave & -Southwestern last night at a gradin’ camp east of Mirage an’ skinned -out with twenty thousand dollars. Bob Warburton was on his trail -when he done it. Posses are out thicker’n fleas—three from -Geerusalem alone. The country’s all riled up. What d’you mean by -actin’ that fool way, Dot? Ain’t you got no sense?” - -“How did I know he was Billy Gee, daddy? Please be a little -reasonable.” She spoke, a tinge of impatience in her voice, her eyes -on the ground. - -“He must ’a’ acted suspicious, didn’t he? An’ he was winged, to -boot.” - -“He was about dead. Father, would you have me run a dying man off -the place, brutally—like a dog? Is that the kind of daughter you -want to be proud of?” She was looking steadily at him now. - -Lemuel was silent a moment. He glanced down at the buckles on his -boots. - -“By gosh, honey! I reckon you’ve got the ol’ man holed up,” he -admitted rather ruefully. “But can’t you see, if it’d bin any one -else, ’cept Bob Warburton, we’d have a tough time provin’ we wasn’t -in cahoots with this thievin’ kiyote. It’s mighty ticklish business, -I’m tellin’ you. He was bad hit, eh?” - -She gave him a detailed account of the fugitive’s arrival at the -ranch, but very carefully omitted to mention that she had taken him -into the house. Adroitly, also, she evaded saying that he had -departed. She dwelt in particular on the seriousness of his -condition because of his loss of blood and his need of immediate -care. Lemuel said no more following this explanation, though it was -quite plain to her that some thought still troubled him. - -While he attended to his chores Dot went into the kitchen and -started getting supper ready. Now she was afire with excitement. -Billy Gee, that terrible personage of whom she had heard such wild, -thrilling things, was locked in her room—lying on her bed! _Her_ -prisoner! Her romantic brain reeled with ecstasy at the realization. -And Sheriff Warburton, posses galore, were frantically beating brush -the length and breadth of Soapweed Plains for Billy Gee, in pursuit -of a ten-thousand-dollar reward. She had outwitted them—she, Dot -Huntington! - -The whole situation struck her as ridiculously funny. She leaned -against the kitchen table and choked with silent laughter. This -indeed was the big, exciting adventure she had longed for all these -past years—infinitely big and exciting, pregnant with thrilling -possibilities. - -Then she remembered her father saying that Billy Gee had stolen -twenty thousand dollars just the night before. She grew anxiously -grave. From reflecting on the robbery she presently interpreted the -cause of her patient’s singular concern over the safety of his -saddlebags. They contained his stealings—currency, most likely; -twenty thousand dollars in bills would make a bulky package, she -believed. - -Lemuel sauntered in from the barn some minutes afterward. He -prepared to wash. - -“I don’t see his horse, Dot,” he began abruptly, as he poured a -dipperful of water into the basin. - -“I turned it out with the rest—after I fed it. The poor thing was——” - -“You give him Baldy, I s’pose?” - -“No. Sheriff Warburton appeared to get the notion from what I said -that I traded horses, and I didn’t tell him different. I didn’t see -why I should,” she explained frankly. - -Lemuel, in the act of rolling up his sleeves, glanced around at her. -He frowned. - -“Are you meanin’ to tell me, Dot, that a dyin’ man with a sheriff at -his heels’d resk a get-away on foot—pertickler, a hard case like -this here Billy Gee? D’you think I’m a fool, Dot?” - -“Well, count your stock if you don’t believe me, daddy. -You’re—you’re doubting everything I say, to-day. I don’t know why. -You’ve never done that before.” - -She spoke in such a meek, sorrowful voice that it moved him to cross -the room to her side and kiss her tenderly on the cheek. - -“Lord bless you, hon!” he murmured in loving tones. “I ain’t aimin’ -to doubt my leetle gal never. You know that.” He laughed. “The on’y -thing I got to say is, it’ll be good-by, Billy Gee, ’fore the week’s -up, if he don’t git somepn faster’n two laigs under him. He must ’a’ -left his saddle an’ everythin’, eh?” he added craftily. - -“Everything,” nodded Dot, in a very decisive manner. - -Lemuel went back to the basin and silently proceeded with his -washing, but he said to himself: “No bandit livin’ would do sech a -crazy thing—shot up, into the bargain. You might fool Bob Warburton, -daughter, but you can’t fool yore ol’ man. There’s ten thousand -dollars hidin’ on this ranch this minute.” - -After supper, Lemuel composed himself in his favorite chair and -smoked his pipe and mused as usual. It was a quiet -night—exceptionally quiet, thought Dot, who, mindful that only a -thin board partition separated her room from the kitchen, grew more -and more fearful as the evening dragged on, in the knowledge that an -accidental sound or movement by her outlaw patient would lead her -father to investigate. She trembled at the consequences to herself. -By the hour she kept busy with the noisy task of scouring pots and -pans, giving the cupboard a thorough overhauling, burnishing the -stove, making all the distracting sounds possible, and wishing and -wishing that Lemuel might go to bed. But he had no such inclination. - -“At three dollars a day, a man’d work over twenty years for twenty -thousand dollars, Dot,” he observed pointedly, breaking a long -silence. “An’ this Billy Gee gits it overnight.” - -“Yes, daddy. But he doesn’t enjoy it. How can he?” she replied, -vigorously rubbing at the stove lids. “Think of him being hunted -from place to place like a wild animal, the target for any man’s -gun, without home or any one to care for him when he’s sick. Think -of such a terrible existence!” - -“When a feller tries an’ tries till the heart’s kicked outer him, -’tain’t hard to tempt him. That’s how I feel about it.” There was an -ugly, suggestive note in his voice. - -She paused in her scrubbing and gave him a quick, searching look. -Some grim expression she saw in his face, a dangerous flicker in his -eyes, filled her with sudden misgivings. - -“I mean that!” he said harshly, with a vicious jerk of his head. He -had taken the pipe from his mouth; his gaze was fastened on her -accusingly. “Look at me! I bin kicked an’ kicked! Year in an’ year -out I bin a-goin’ it, till I’m bruck down—petered out, an’ not a -cussed thing to show for it. An’ look at other men who ain’t half as -deservin’! What’ve I got, eh? What’ve you got?” He stiffened in his -chair, gulped out suddenly in tones that reverberated through the -silent little house: “An’ I’ve tried—God Almighty knows! An’ yore -poor ma she—she died a-tryin’ an’ skimpin’ an’ dreamin’——” - -“Father!” cried Dot aghast. Her face was white, drawn; her eyes wide -with alarm. - -Sitting there in the yellow lamplight, Lemuel Huntington was wild to -behold; his features distorted into hideous lines; his hands -clenched, his whole body trembling spasmodically. He burst into a -horrible laugh. - -“To-day, you doctor up a low-down murd’rous skunk that’d cut our -throats to-morrow for the fun of it. An’ ten thousand dollars gits -by us, eh? D’you hear that! D’you hear that? Ten thousand dollars -for Billy Gee, dead or alive! D’you know what that means to us? An’ -d’you reckon I’m goin’ to sit still an’ let you——” - -“Blood money!” she broke in, gasping out the words. “Daddy, would -you want to buy your food and drink—mine—our clothes, -pleasures—would you be so inhuman as to find happiness at the -expense of a miserable fellow creature?” - -“It’s the law—like the ten-dollar bounty on the hide of the kiyote. -Money is money,” he slung in savagely. “I want you to c’nsider me, -yoreself, our c’ndition. I bin wantin’ to give you an edjucation, to -carry out yore ma’s dyin’ wish. I want you to be somebody. We bin -livin’ like dogs too long. I’m damn sick of it! Outside o’ Agatha -Liggs, look at how them town hussies treat you! An’ them edjucated -shysters who ain’t fit to grease my boots—what do I git from them? -We need money. We got to git money—_now_. Right off, see? An’ if you -can’t help me git it honest, ’cordin’ to law, I’ll start out to -steal it! I’ll turn bandit, an’ it’ll be for you to hide me out an’ -take care of me! What d’you say to that, eh? What’re you goin’ to -do?” - -He had risen to his feet as he spoke. He crossed the kitchen to her -side and stood now, glowering down on her, cupidity, fury, -desperation flaming from his eyes. Terrified, she stared at him. She -knew at last the reason for the marked change in him, what he -intimated. There was no way for her to dodge the issue. - -“You think I know where Billy Gee is——” she began with an effort. - -“You got him hid out, an’ don’t lie to me!” he roared. “He’s too -sick to ride, an’ you’re nursin’ him some place on this ranch. You -can’t make no damn fool out of me, young lady. Where is he? You’re -goin’ to tell me, or by hell, I’ll——” He raised his clenched fists -menacingly above her head. - - -CHAPTER IV—LEMUEL YIELDS - -Lemuel Huntington, as has been suggested, was not a forceful -character. Even in this desperate moment when the strength of his -life’s mania was being directed to gain that which would make the -fulfillment of that mania possible, he lacked the stubbornness of -will, the blind conquering egoism, to win his demands at all costs. -He had never had occasion to present such a furious front to his -daughter before. That he was doing it now, exerted a disconcerting -influence upon him, embarrassed him, made him a little uncertain as -to the fairness of his methods. - -On the other hand, he had never even so much as suspected the -existence of a broad strain of high-spiritedness in Dot’s nature and -that firmness of purpose which he himself did not have. The -launching of his threat roused her like the sting of a whip. Her -terror vanished and left her cold. She strode up close to him now -and let her eyes burn into his. - -“Father! Another word from you, and I’ll leave the house. And I’ll -never come back!” - -He did not answer. He looked at her in a queer, dumb frenzy. Then -slowly, amazement, incredulity, indecision grew on his face. He had -never seen her so dreadfully calm, so white before. She had never -threatened such a fearful thing before! A long minute dragged by. - -From out in the darkness came the weird shriek of a predacious -nighthawk. Presently, he turned away from her, walked back to his -chair, and began filling with clumsy, trembling fingers his -forgotten pipe. His mouth was distorted with what seemed to be some -forlorn grief; his breath broke from his lungs in low distressful -gasps. - -It grew very quiet. The old clock on the shelf ticked tiredly. Some -time afterward he heard a sob and, glancing around, saw Dot leaning -against the wall, her face buried in her hands. Thereupon he put -down his pipe and went over and took her in his arms. Hungrily he -held her to his breast, and there was in his eyes the reflection of -the fierce struggle that was taking place in his soul. - -“Your poor, lonesome leetle heart,” he said, in a voice that shook -with sobs. “I didn’t aim to act so cussed, darlin’. God knows, I -wouldn’t do nuthin’ to hurt you, Dot! You know yore dad’d do -anythin’ to make you happy. Don’t you, honey? I’d go through fire -an’ brimstone, I’d die for your daughter, Emily, like I always -said,” he added, his face turned to the rafters under the roof. - -Some time afterward, as he lighted his candle to go to his room and -kissed her good night, he reassured her gently. “I jest git so -disapp’inted with myse’f, dearie. Yore poor ma an’ me used to plan -so many big things for our leetle gal. I’ve wanted to do so much for -you an’ I ain’t done nuthin’. Anyway, Dot, we’ll ferget all about -this here Billy Gee. It ain’t worth quarrelin’ over, it ain’t worth -it, hon.” - -Dot lingered in the kitchen until she was sure he had gone to bed. -Then she began hurried preparations to spirit her outlaw patient out -of the house. Filling a bottle with hot coffee, she threw some bread -and meat into a paper bag. After this she tiptoed to her room, -stealthily unlocked the door, closed it behind her, and lit the -candle on the bureau. - -One glance, and she saw that her bed was empty, the window open. -Billy Gee was gone; so were his saddlebags! - -For an instant she stood perplexed. But she breathed easier, vastly -relieved that he had thus chosen to steal out of the house without -her aid. Stepping over to the window she flashed the candle outside -and listened into the quiet night. There was no sign of him, no -sound. He must have found his way into the hayloft, she told -herself, recalling the fact that she had described the location of -his new hiding place to him that afternoon. But from reflecting on -his weak condition she became more and more concerned about him, -resolving finally to investigate his whereabouts and take him the -food. - -It was only a matter of four feet from the window sill to the -ground, and a far safer means of exit from the house at this late -hour, particularly after her father’s furious outburst, so -unexpected and ominous. She put out the light and let herself down -noiselessly into the strip of garden outside, and flitted off like a -shadow for the barn. With a subdued little cough to herald her -coming to the fugitive, she climbed the short flight of steps to the -loft and struck a match. - -He was there, standing knee-deep in the loose hay, spectral, -sinister, a six-shooter glinting in his hand. At sight of her, he -lowered the weapon and clutched a tie beam for support. Ere the -match went out, she reached his side. - -“I was leary it’d go hard on you if he ketched me in there, so I -sneaked out,” he explained in low tones. “I heerd it all an’ I’m -sorry I got you in so much trouble. I’m goin’ to resk it, to-night.” - -“No, no! You mustn’t,” she whispered quickly. “The plains are alive -with posses. You’d never escape.” - -He chuckled softly. “Wunst I git a-goin’, I’ll be orright. The -moon’s comin’ up, an’ I got folks livin’ handy.” - -“Here’s something for you to eat. You must be terribly hungry—weak.” -She thrust the bottle and the paper bag into his hand as she spoke. -“I’d counted on you staying till you were stronger—three days, -anyway. You’d be perfectly safe here. I’d see that you were. Why -don’t you?” - -“Yore dad’s too sespicious. He’ll start huntin’ me up; you see if he -don’t.” He broke off, resuming: “I—I won’t ever ferget what you’ve -done for me, Miss Huntington. An’ you wouldn’t give me away, would -you? An’ you’re desp’rate for money. I ain’t ever had anybody give -me such a square deal—chuck over a fortune to help——” His voice -trailed off into silence. - -“You poor, wounded wild animal!” said Dot gently. “Even a coyote is -better off than you. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know any -different? Is it so much easier to be bad, so much more pleasing to -have a pack of legalized killers always on your heels? Or don’t you -care?” She paused and added: “Do you really want to repay me for -everything I’ve done for you?” - -Through a square hole under the eaves, the first white beams of the -moon were just struggling in. She could see the man’s face -indistinctly; the white bandage around his head. - -“I do. Say it! Anythin’ you want done, Miss Huntington,” he nodded. - -“Then, quit this miserable life. Be a man. Go far away, where no one -will ever recognize you, and start fresh. Be honorable—somehow. You -can do it, if you want to. But will you? To pay me back?” There was -a strange, dramatic note in her voice. - -He caught her hand suddenly, fervently. “I’ll do it, Miss -Huntington. Listen! You turned down ten thousand dollars; you stuck -by me. I’m goin’ to show you what I kin do for you. Some of these -days you’re goin’ to hear from me.” - -“I’m so glad,” she breathed. “I’d be so proud to know that I helped -remake the wild animal, Billy Gee, into a God-fearing human being.” - -A short, heavy silence fell. From somewhere in the ground floor of -the barn, a board expanding with the cool night air snapped sharply. - -“I come up here to take a coupla these old blankets, sence I can’t -lug my saddle; it’s too heavy,” he announced, after a little while. -“Would you mind fixin’ ’em for me?” - -She found them half folded, made a neat roll of them, and looped -them for slinging over the shoulders with strips she tore from her -calico apron. As she prepared to leave him, he spoke again. - -“Miss Huntington, I’d sorter like you to know that I ain’t near’s -bad as they tell it around. I ain’t never killed a man—wounded ’em, -yes, an’ only jest when I had to. An’ with all I’ve got away with, -I’m next thing to broke this minute. That’s honest——” - -“But you held up the paymaster’s car last night, didn’t you?” she -interrupted. - -“Yes’m. But I didn’t hold onto the money, bein’ wounded, an’ -Warburton——” - -“What was in your saddlebags that you said you couldn’t afford to -lose?” - -“My mother’s pitcher, some clothes, an’ a lot of leetle doodads I’m -keepin’. I always have ’em along with me. But I want to tell you -ag’in that I ain’t fergettin’ yore kindness. You’re goin’ to hear -from me, Miss Huntington, some time. An’—an’ I hope you’ll be proud, -like you jest said.” - -Dot crept down the steps shortly afterward, shut the barn door -behind her, and darted across the moonlit yard. Climbing back into -her room she cautiously lowered the window. Then, with a sigh of -relief and satisfaction, she went to bed. For the remainder of the -night, she lay wide-eyed, snug in the bewitching embraces of romance -and imagination. - -Following her departure, Billy Gee remained in the hayloft for a -long interval and leisurely ate the food she had brought him. -Periodically, he looked at his watch by the aid of a moonbeam -streaming in through a crack in the boards. When one o’clock came, -he got carefully to his feet, took up the roll of blankets, and -started downstairs. - -From far out on Soapweed Plains, rose the wail-bark of a foraging -coyote. There was no other sound. That semiarid land lay mute and -mysterious and teaming with tragic potentialities. - -“Creepy,” he muttered under his breath. “Reckon I’m a leetle -flighty—leaked too much blood.” - -He reached the ground floor and noiselessly made his way toward the -rear door of the barn, heading for the field and his horse. As he -fumbled in the dark for the hasp an invisible figure emerged from -under the steps back of him. He felt the sharp dig of a six-shooter -between his shoulders. A voice hissed in his ear. - -“Steady, pardner! Make a move, an’ I’ll kill you!” - -In a twinkling, he was stripped of his guns. Then his captor—Lemuel -Huntington—unhasped the barn door and herded him outside and down a -narrow lane between two corrals, until they stood in the open field. - -“Turn yore face to the moon, an’ let’s git a squint of you, Billy -Gee,” said Lemuel. He studied the outlaw a few seconds. “So my gal -was passin’ up ten thousand dollars for the likes of you, eh? Well, -I won’t! Now, listen clost an’ don’t make no mistake about what I -tell you! Me an’ you’s goin’ on into Geerusalem right off, see? -Warburton wants you dead or ’live, an’ it’s up to you how you care -to be deelivered to him. I don’t. Savvy! Now, march acrosst to them -hosses!” - - -CHAPTER V—THE WHEREWITHAL - -When Dot awoke next morning, after a fitful few hours’ sleep, it was -nine o’clock. She sprang out of bed and hurried through her -dressing, certain that her father was considerately waiting his -breakfast rather than disturb her, late though the hour was. But -upon entering the kitchen, she found that he had not yet been about. -This fact at first astonished, then filled her with alarm. She ran -to his door and rapped sharply, calling him, and experienced a -feeling of deep relief when she heard him yawn out a reply. - -Nevertheless, as she walked back into the kitchen and began scraping -the ashes out of the grate, she reflected on the usual circumstance -of Lemuel oversleeping; for not in many years—and then only on the -several rare occasions that they had been out late together the -night before, attending a party at some neighboring ranch—had he -failed to have the fire in the stove going for her. Later on she -told herself that it was quite probable their quarrel had disturbed -him, that worry had kept him awake, and out of this conviction was -born an acute feeling of remorse which determined her to make no -reference to the time of day or to anything that might recall the -unhappy scene of the night. - -For that matter, he also was silent on the subject. He came into the -kitchen, stretching himself tremendously, grinning, in the best -spirits she had seen him in for many months. She could not help but -notice a remarkable change in him, but attributed it to his desire -to have her forget their recent differences. So she met him halfway -in the effort and laughed merrily when he jested about the -professional fraternity he hobnobbed with in camp and at his sly -insinuations that Agatha Liggs would make an adorable stepmother for -some girl. As he picked up his hat to look after his chores he -caught her in his arms, told her how fondly he loved her, and that -her happiness meant everything in the world to him. - -But alone, back of the barn, his display of buoyancy vanished. He -gazed down the lane between the two corrals and reënacted in his -mind’s eye his brave capture of the notorious train robber, Billy -Gee, and the way he had marched the outlaw into Sheriff Warburton’s -room in the hotel before daybreak and turned his prisoner over to -the astounded, sleepy-eyed official. Again, he felt an ecstatic -thrill over the realization that he had the certified check of the -Mohave & Southwestern Railroad for ten thousand dollars in his -pocket that very moment! - -Nor could he subdue the wild surge of elation that swept through his -breast at thought that his Dot was to receive the long-cherished -education, that here at last, after long, trialsome years of -waiting, was the crystallization of his dead wife’s precious dreams -all but fulfilled. Why couldn’t this sacred woman of his heart have -lived to enjoy this great moment of happiness with him, to know that -all her trying and skimping and dreaming had not been done in vain? -Yes, he decided, Dot would be educated “to the queen’s taste;” -nothing would be spared, nothing would be left undone to make her -the wonderful lady of accomplishments Emily had so desired. - -But with all the deep sense of gratification that his reavowal of -intentions gave him and the delight he got from planning the -glorious future, he could not put out of his mind Billy Gee’s last -words to him in Warburton’s room that morning—what Billy Gee had -said, the look in his eyes as he spoke. - -“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m -huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! -Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!” - -There had been something so frightful, so murderously frightful, in -the threat as it fell from the outlaw’s tight-drawn lips. Try as he -would, Lemuel had not been able to forget the hatred in the man’s -fiery eyes, the icy cut in his voice. He was doomed to be haunted by -them, to have memory rehearse them over and over to him. - -True, Billy Gee was even now being taken out of the country, -southwest to the county seat, San Buenaventura, heavily shackled, -under the hawklike eye of Bob Warburton; and countless things would -happen ere the train robber served out the long prison sentence that -confronted him. But the mere fact that he _would_ serve it out, that -he would be free some time, was an overshadowing menace that laid a -firm, clammy hand on Lemuel’s heart. - -For many minutes he stood and stared across the plains. Doubtless -Billy Gee would hunt him up and kill him, he told himself nervously. -A vicious bandit of Billy Gee’s ilk would stop at nothing to get -revenge. He shook his head, feeling strangely insecure. After a -little, he recalled Dot’s interest in the fellow. One thing was -certain; she must not even so much as suspect what her father had -done. Not until the episode was old and forgotten must she know what -had happened to the fugitive. - -He knew it was not love for Billy Gee that had prompted her to hide -him, help him to escape. Dot was sentimental, romantic; she was just -sorry for the scamp. Most women were that way. But after their -quarrel last night she must never surmise how he had treacherously -spied on her, seen her go into the barn, and lain in wait to capture -the man she was trying to save. - -So while Dot prepared their breakfast her father made plans whereby -she might not know for years to come just what had befallen the -magnificent bandit who had ridden into her life out of the magical -violet and yellow scallop of hills. In the first place, Lemuel was -determined to hurry her out of the locality that she might not hear -of the heroic leading rôle he had played; secondly, he cast about -for a logical explanation of how he came to have sufficient money to -afford a journey such as he contemplated. He knew Dot was too -familiar with his affairs not to question his sudden acquisition of -any considerable amount of money. He struck upon a happy solution. - -During the meal he mentioned rather casually that he was going to -Geerusalem to see if he could negotiate a loan from Bob Warburton, -and he backed up the propriety of his action by declaring that he -had once come to the sheriff’s assistance when the latter was -financially down and out. - -Dot was interested. To her query as to how much he intended -borrowing, Lemuel grinned confidently: - -“A coupla thousand dollars, anyway. An’ I’m purty sure to git it, at -that.” - -She stared across the table at him, perplexed for the moment. What -in the world possessed her father this morning? He was so changed, -so self-confident, so resolute—as if he were laboring under some -suppressed emotion, some unusual good tidings that he was with -difficulty keeping to himself. The strange way in which she studied -him made him hasten to put at rest any suspicion she may have -entertained. - -“I bin thinkin’ it all over, Dot, an’ I decided that what me an’ you -needs most is a leetle more pleasure an’ not so much stickin’ to a -cussed ol’ ranch year in an’ year out like we bin doin’. So I’m -goin’ to borry some real money off Bob, an’ we’re takin’ a -trip—Frisco, Noo York, or any place you say. Le’s be good an’ happy -wunst anyway, an’ see how it feels. What d’you say?” - -She brightened instantly. Her eyes widened, sparkled with -expectation. “It’d be just wonderful, daddy,” she cried. “But—but -you’d have to pay the money back some time, and it would be so -hard——” - -“We ain’t goin’ to stop to think o’ that, hon. We’re out for one -grand cut-up, me an’ you. Leave it to me. I’ll do the worryin’. If I -git it you’ll go, won’t you?” - -“Go?” she echoed joyously. “Oh, daddy! I’ve been wishing and wishing -and wishing, months and months and years, to see cities and orchards -and rivers and steamers and street cars and the ocean, and——” - -They talked on, Lemuel controlling by a desperate effort the wild -enthusiasm that consumed him, Dot giving her eagerness unbridled -play, planning and scheduling an itinerary with a dispatch and -thoroughness that made him fairly marvel at her cleverness. Shortly -afterward, however, as he was galloping toward camp he laughed aloud -to the boundless desolation of plain over the shrewd way in which he -had deceived his daughter, clever though she was. - -Dot stood on the front porch looking after him. She watched him out -of sight, her brain in a delicious stupor at the glorious prospect -of seeing for the first time in her life the great fairyland far to -the north, that wonderful region she had read and dreamed so much -about. For a long interval she reveled in the thought, until her -eyes turned to the violet and yellow scallop of range in the -distance. Her mind swung back to the present, then to Billy Gee. How -was he faring? - -The day was hot, similar to yesterday. It was very silent, too. -Presently it began dawning on her that to-day was different from any -she had ever known. She glanced over the garden. It seemed lonesome; -she had never thought it lonesome before. The feel of the ranch, -too, filled her with an odd depression. Everything looked so -colorless, so uninteresting, so awfully the same. Her eyes went back -to the violet and yellow scallop of hills again. That bleak -playground of mirages where she had visualized the figments of her -imagination, appeared to have lost its magic. The whole range seemed -faded, so wrinkled, so woefully unattractive, like the bleached -outlines of some shabby old crayon. She turned into the house and -entered the parlor. - -For many seconds she stood and gazed down at the lounge and began -reviewing, as she had done a number of times, her meeting with the -notorious Billy Gee, from the moment of his coming, until she bade -him good-by in the half light of the hayloft. - -“He isn’t the terrible person they say,” she told the parlor lounge. -“There are a lot of worse men in Geerusalem who wear white collars -and polish their shoes every morning. They know how to rob according -to law. They haven’t the courage to take to the open with a -six-shooter. Poor fellow! He was so grateful, and his voice was so -lonely, so gentle.” - -She walked into her bedroom, still thinking of him, and it came to -her suddenly that she had hidden the worst criminal of the -generation in that bedroom, that he had occupied her bed even! She -halted in the middle of the floor and blushed furiously over the -reflection. What would her father say if he knew? And her dear old -lady friend, the good Mrs. Agatha Liggs? Or Sheriff Warburton? The -utter recklessness of her act now struck her with full force. - -But the next instant she was defending herself with the argument -that Billy Gee was bent on mending his ways. He had promised her he -would reform. She believed him. If he were captured—— - -For some reason she felt no anxiety on that score. He had been too -confident of his ability to evade the posses, had shown no alarm -over the information that they were out in numbers; besides, he had -mentioned having relatives living close at hand, denoting that he -would find safety with them until such time as he could leave the -country. - -“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time,” he had -said. - -She experienced a strange little thrill when she recalled that he -was giving up his vicious career solely because she had asked him -to. It was such a satisfying thought, such a proud conceit, to feel -that she, Dot Huntington, had exerted an influence over this elusive -terror of the Southwest who laughed at the law and recognized -nothing binding upon him save the fulfillment of his own personal -desires. Yet, she told herself, she would look forward from now on, -hopefully, with keen anticipation, to the day when she would hear -from him. - -While thinking thus, she had been standing near her bed, gazing -abstractedly at the old-fashioned bureau opposite. Now her eyes -became attracted to a narrow edge of green showing just over the top -of the middle drawer. Thoughtfully, she reached down and plucked at -it with thumb and forefinger. She drew it out—a ten-dollar -greenback. For one long instant she stared dumfounded at it. Then -she pulled out the drawer and fell back with a low cry, gazing at -the interior in wide-eyed, fearful amazement. The drawer was piled -high with a disordered mass of currency of all denominations. - - -CHAPTER VI—AFTERMATH - -Geerusalem was a camp of many people of many waspish dispositions. -The engrossing business of making money and spending it kept this -isolated desert settlement steering a more or less wabbly, -law-abiding course, for, like frontier camps the world over, it had -its furious six-shooter forays, stealthy knifings, mob uprisings, -its denizens of dive and den. These things were simply because civic -unity was an unknown quality at the time, the population of the -fly-by-night variety, and the county officials too busy serving the -communities where the majority vote held forth to concern themselves -with the “scattering returns.” - -Established before the “blue-sky” law was written into the statute -books of California, this metropolis of Soapweed Plains was the -Mecca of the “wildcatter”—that thrifty, gentlemanly rascal who -tempts gullible men and women of other climes to invest their nest -eggs in mining stock fit only to start the kitchen fire. These -gentry were the leading citizens of Geerusalem, though their -neighbors knew them for what they were; autocratic, pompous fellows, -skimming just under the surface of the law, clever swindlers who -paid homage to none save the mining engineer and the occasional -moody geologist who dropped unannounced into camp. A mineralogist’s -O. K. was a valuable thing to have on a stock prospectus. - -The .45-caliber brains with which Lemuel Huntington hobnobbed, -belonged, for the most part, to these wildcatters—promoters, they -styled themselves. He was their standing joke, their dub, the -something at which they could sling the garbage of their talk. From -which it may be surmised that he did not rank very high in the -estimation of this fraternity. Yet, heretofore, he had felt oddly -gratified over the thought that he could associate with them; they -were “big guns,” financially powerful, influential to a great -degree, and they had seemed, to his way of thinking, to be exemplars -of education and refinement. - -This morning, however, as he rode into camp from his ranch, on what -he had led Dot to believe was a borrowing expedition, his viewpoint -had undergone a change. He was a far different Lemuel Huntington -from the tolerant, good-natured dub of yesterday. He had captured -the terrible, much-feared desperado, Billy Gee. He had won a -comfortable fortune by his bravery. His Dot was going to receive -that long-dreamed-of education. His breast was filled with it; his -head reeled with his own importance. - -Geerusalem was seething with excitement. The main street was clogged -with men, discussing Huntington, Billy Gee, the holdup of the -paymaster’s car, the dramatic entry at daybreak of captor and -captive while shotgun posses scoured the country over a fifty-mile -radius. It was a monumental “catch,” unprecedented in Southwestern -history. - -As Lemuel rode into view, some one recognized him. News of his -presence in camp spread like wildfire. A crowd surged after him, -gathering in size. He had not expected an ovation of such an -enthusiastic nature, and it embarrassed him. He wished now that he -had come in by a back street. His face flaming red, flustered, he -looked about over the heads of that stream of humanity that soon -packed the thoroughfare from sidewalk to sidewalk, acclaimed him as -he rode along. - -He spied Mrs. Agatha Liggs. She was standing in the doorway of her -little dry-goods store watching his approach. As he came opposite -her he smiled and raised his hat. Then he grew abashed. She had not -acknowledged the salutation. In the belief that she had not seen the -action he bowed again. - -She was looking straight at him, and he thought that her thin, -pathetic face was unusually pale and drawn, that her fragile little -body was more stooped, that her lips were strangely pursed. She -looked at him fixedly with an expression in her old eyes so icy, so -accusing, as to make him feel foolish and uncomfortable. That look -of hers flattened out his conceit as nothing else could have done. -He rode on up the street to the bank, dismounted, and went inside, -wondering just why Mrs. Liggs had snubbed him. - -The huge crowd that had followed him, collected before the building, -and watching him through the doors and windows, saw him cash the -Mohave & Southwestern’s ten-thousand-dollar certificate check. As he -came out the door, acquaintances began hailing him lustily. He heard -flattering comments of his valor on every hand. - -“Gritty chap. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?” - -“Brought him in single-handed. Fine work, pardner!” - -“Done overnight what a hundred posses couldn’t do in ten years.” - -“Good boy, Lem! Oh, you Nick Carter!” - -Crimson as a turkey gobbler, sweat streaming down his face, he led -his horse to a livery stable. Then he strutted down the plank -sidewalk, the mob stringing out behind him. Presently he entered an -auto-stage office, talked to the ticket seller about mileage and -rates, and ended by paying down the rental of a machine, to be ready -in an hour. Ten minutes later found him swaggering big-chested into -the U. & I. saloon—hangout of the .45-caliber brains of Geerusalem. -He glanced boldly around at the uppish fraternity, posed about, -fastidious and blasé, deigned them a nod and ordered a drink. This -was the red-letter hour in Lemuel Huntington’s life. - -He leaned luxuriously against the bar, peeled off a bill from his -great wad, and to those who came up to congratulate him on his -daring feat, remarked with considerable loftiness: “Yes, I reckon it -takes somepin’ better’n edjucation to handle a man like Billy Gee.” - -Downing his drink, he was turning to make his stately way out of the -place, when he heard his name called, and a familiar hand was laid -on his arm. He recognized a young mining engineer friend, a recent -arrival from San Francisco. With him was a tall sharp-eyed man, -twenty-seven or thereabouts, pleasing of face, and with a grave -courtesy that instantly marked him in Lemuel’s mind as a total -stranger to desert life. He was dressed in a whipcord suit that was -partly concealed beneath a voluminous dust coat. On his head was a -golf cap, a pair of goggles thrust up over the visor, and he carried -driving gauntlets in one hand. - -“Mr. Huntington, meet Mr. Sangerly,” said the mining engineer. The -two shook hands. “Mr. Sangerly’s father is Western manager of the -Mohave Southwestern, and he wanted to thank you in person for your -splendid service to his company by your capture of this desperado, -Billy Gee.” - -Lemuel rubbed his chin in awkward fashion. “There wasn’t nuthin’ -much to it, Mr. Sangerly,” he muttered. - -“Indeed there was,” declared the other. “Why, this outlaw has robbed -our trains eight times in the last three years. Besides our losses, -Wells Fargo has suffered greatly. You’ve done us what I candidly -look upon as an immeasurable service, and the general office is -being thoroughly informed on the matter.” He paused. “There was a -side issue relative to your capture that I wished to take up -privately with you, Mr. Huntington—if you have time, and if Mr. -Lennox,” glancing at his friend, “will excuse us.” - -Three minutes later, they were seated across from each other in a -booth at the rear of the saloon, a table between them, the waiter -departing with their order. - -“Now, to start at the beginning, Mr. Huntington,” said Sangerly, -coming directly to the point, “Billy Gee robbed our paymaster’s car -at a grading camp a few miles east of the station of Mirage. This -you doubtless already know. Well, Sheriff Warburton, who had been in -close touch with our Los Angeles office ever since he got on the -bandit’s trail a week ago, wired us the same night of the robbery. -From the tone of his message Billy Gee was heading north and his -capture would be affected within ten hours. That was the gist of the -thing. Anyhow, I started by auto yesterday morning. As it happened, -you beat Warburton to the honors. You brought Billy Gee in, but the -twenty thousand dollars he stole from our paymaster is missing.” - -“I’d thought about that,” Lemuel replied. “On our way into camp this -mornin’, I asked him in pertick’lar what’d become of it, an’ he said -it was in safe hands.” - -Sangerly lit a cigarette. “That’s what he told Warburton and that’s -what’s keeping me here. I’m going to find out, if possible, who has -that money. I intend to arrest the party as an accomplice and try to -get him—or her—a jail sentence. There’s not the slightest doubt in -my mind that this unknown person has been harboring the outlaw in -the past and has profited at the expense of our company. You heard, -of course, that he is supposed to have relatives somewhere on -Soapweed Plains?” - -“I don’t believe it,” said Lemuel. “That’s what Bob Warburton was -tellin’ me. He said the only reason that folks got that idee, was -because after robbin’ a train, Billy Gee’d always head this way an’ -disappear. But look at how far it is to the railroad! That’s all -talk.” - -“Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Huntington! Don’t forget that this is the -nearest point of habitation. Now, let me explain something to you.” -Sangerly took a pencil from his pocket and began mapping off the -table roughly. “According to the sheriff, with whom I had a long -talk before he left for San Buenaventura this morning, he followed -Billy Gee’s trail over every foot of the way—fifty-odd miles, and -barren desert all of it. By barren, I mean flat, sandy country, and -lacking those landmarks which would tempt any outlaw, hard-pressed, -to hide his plunder. Moreover and most important, Billy Gee was -wounded—shot by one of the paymaster’s crew as he was riding away. -My opinion is, therefore, that he brought the money direct to your -ranch and——” - -“I can’t see how you figger that out, Mr. Sangerly,” broke in Lemuel -hurriedly. “Ain’t you kinder insinuatin’ a leetle that I’m in -cahoots with a train robber?” he added in measured tones. - -Sangerly hastened to correct the impression. He caught the other’s -hand, shook it laughingly. “The furthest thing from my mind, my -friend,” he declared. “Certainly, I couldn’t imagine an accomplice -doing what you did. It’s not reasonable. It would be ridiculous. But -just follow me and you’ll agree with me that my theory is correct as -to fact. Now, this is the exact situation: Here we have Billy Gee -with Sheriff Warburton at his heels—not over two hours behind, mind -you! Billy Gee is wounded, bleeding badly. He is traveling over a -country as flat as this table, where there is no chance of hiding -his booty with any assurance of ever being able to find it -again—lack of landmarks, you understand? And all the time he is -becoming weaker from loss of blood. From what little I saw of him -to-day it is a question in my mind whether he would have risked -getting off his horse to cache his stealings if he had had a chance, -through fear of not being able to mount again. - -“Anyhow, it is certain he was far more concerned over getting his -wound attended to than he was about the money. So he must have -pressed forward as rapidly as his horse could carry him, -particularly since Warburton said that he had him in sight after -daybreak and up to the time he dropped off the mesa onto the plains. -Now, Mr. Huntington, the paymaster’s crew told the sheriff that -Billy Gee stuffed the twenty thousand dollars—currency, all of -it—into his saddlebags, and you brought him in without his -saddlebags, I believe.” - -“That’s c’rrect,” agreed Lemuel, with a troubled frown. “I found -he’d crawled in my barn. Afterward, I located his hoss in the far -end of the field. But, it seems to me——” - -“I questioned the sheriff carefully on that point, but he said that -all he knew was just what you told him,” interrupted Sangerly. “His -theory was that the fellow turned his horse into your field when no -one was watching and took the opportunity also of hiding his saddle -and saddlebags, later on finding his way into the barn to wait until -night when he might reach the home of his friend or relative -unobserved. That’s what I believe, Mr. Huntington. I am quite -convinced that Billy Gee cached that money on your ranch. He could -lie low at this rendezvous of his, and some dark night when the -whole affair had blown over, he’d simply slip out there and dig up -the treasure. A very natural step to take, in my opinion.” - -Lemuel nodded slowly. “It sounds reas’nable, at that. An’ you aim to -look over the ground, I reckon, to see if you kin locate the cache.” - -“Precisely. Warburton has promised me he’ll try to sweat the bandit -into confessing. Meanwhile, I’ll work on this end with two railroad -detectives whom I’ve brought with me. You’ll have no objections, of -course, if we spend a few days snooping around the place, Mr. -Huntington?” he asked smilingly. - -“Not at all. Me an’ my daughter’s leavin’ for a two-week trip -to-day, but I’ll stick the key under the front doormat, an’ you kin -make yoreself to home.” - -Sangerly thanked him. They left the booth and walked out to the -street together. As they parted, Lemuel said: - -“When do you figger you’ll be out to the ranch, Mr. Sangerly?” - -“This afternoon, some time. Be assured we’ll not abuse your -hospitality, and I hope to see you again on your return. By the -way,” he added, as an afterthought, “I understand you have a -daughter. Did she see Billy Gee, or have any idea of his presence -before his capture? I mean, had she noticed anything that would have -led her to suspect the presence of a stranger in the neighborhood?” - -“No, sir,” said Lemuel, with a positive shake of his head. “She was -surprised when I told her. I had to show her the check I got, ’fore -she would believe me. I think you got it sized up about right; this -Billy Gee party jest watched his chanct, reckonin’ on a clean -get-away. He turned his hoss out along with mine to throw off -sespicion, an’ buried his swag where he could come an’ git it -unbeknown to anybody.” He laughed. “You don’t know my Dot, Mr. -Sangerly. If ever there was a real honest-to-goodness little lady, -she’s it—even if I do have to say it. I want you to meet her when we -git back.” - - -CHAPTER VII—STARTLING PREDICAMENTS - -That talk with the son of the Western manager of the Mohave & -Southwestern Railroad did not set well on Lemuel’s mind. Even the -fact that the Geerusalem _Searchlight’s_ bulletin board, with chalky -eloquence, fairly bristling with superlatives, made bold to proclaim -him “California’s Bat Masterson,” carried little if any thrill for -him. Sangerly’s words sounded like trouble in disguise. Sangerly’s -keen deduction of what had happened to the paymaster’s money seemed -alarmingly correct. It seemed more, for on the heels of its apparent -certitude, came the distressing suspicion that Dot, having assisted -Billy Gee during his whole period at the ranch, must know something -about the disappearance of his saddlebags. Sangerly was right. No -man in the bandit’s condition would have lost precious moments -trying to hide his stealings, particularly in a trackless, -changeable sand waste such as lay to the south. It would have been -the height of folly, a useless piece of work, for he never could -have found his cache again. There was not the slightest doubt but -that that twenty thousand dollars was on the Huntington Ranch. - -So thought Lemuel, and then he recalled that Sangerly had mentioned -the presence of two railroad detectives who were to aid him in the -search. What if they should dig up evidence involving Dot? Sheriff -Warburton had not so much as hinted about her having harbored the -bandit, from what Sangerly had said; yet Warburton must surely have -suspected it. Bob Warburton certainly was a good friend. - -The longer Lemuel reviewed the situation, the more he became -convinced that he must get Dot out of the country before these -detectives began their investigations. He shuddered at the fearful -disgrace were her name mentioned, even in the remotest way, with the -whole ugly affair. He would pack her out of Soapweed Plains -immediately. Later on he would question her. He was fully convinced -that she would give him all the details on the subject without -hesitation when he asked her. - -He had still a few minutes left before the time he must report back -to the stage office. These he devoted to hiring a man who would look -after the ranch during their absence. Afterward, he sought the quiet -and seclusion of a back street and wandered aimlessly about, his -mind busy with this new disturbing angle that threatened to sully -the clean name of Huntington. So preoccupied was he, that he -entirely overlooked his intention of paying Mrs. Liggs a visit to -inquire the reason for her cold treatment of him shortly before. - -He found the rented machine ready and waiting for him. Clambering in -beside the driver, he was soon whirling out of camp toward home. A -strange sense of security came to him. Sangerly and his sleuths were -left behind, and it would be only a matter of a few short hours ere -he and Dot would be lost in the confusion and bustle of traveling -thousands. The proverbial needle in the haystack would be as easy to -find as they, he told himself. - -When within a mile of the ranch he chanced to glance in the -direction of the low line of chromatic hills across which his -acreage extended. A man was trudging along through the greasewood -brush, steering diagonally for the road. He was less than a quarter -of a mile off, and Lemuel squinted at him curiously. - -“Who’s that sun lizard? Kin you make him out?” he asked the driver. - -The latter looked. “Sure. That’s old Tinnemaha Pete, a prospector. -You must know him. Hangs around Mrs. Liggs’ store a lot. She’s bin -grubstaking him for years, I hear. Some one was telling me he used -to be her husband’s partner.” - -Lemuel nodded. “Come to think of it now, I did meet him there -wunst.” - -“Poor old devil! If it weren’t for her he’d have starved to death -long ago,” said the driver. “The gold fever sure gets ’em, don’t it? -He’s been going it all his life and never found anything. Never -will, I reckon. One of these days, he’ll go out and the old -desert’ll pick his bones clean. That’s how most of these granddads -end up.” - -The machine sped on, its dust cloud trailing across the flat, -enveloping the bent, shriveled form of Tinnemaha Pete, rocking -pathetically along on his unsteady legs, a canvas bag slung over his -shoulder, bound for Geerusalem. Like some misshapen wraith, born of -the grotesqueness and deformity of that wild, mystic desolation, he -fled on, his long gray beard whisking about in the hot breeze, his -baggy clothes bulging and shrinking in the wrench and flip of its -frolicking. - -A few minutes later the automobile stopped before the Huntington -gate, and Lemuel sprang out and hurried up the walk toward the -house. Dot, attracted by the approach of the car, had come to the -front door. She greeted her father with an expression of blank -amazement. - -“What in the world, daddy——” she began. - -“Git ready to travel, hon!” he cried out excitedly, as he put an arm -around her and drew her into the house. “Looket! Looket! We got -money. What d’you think o’ that?” He fished out a handful of bills -and waved them before her face. He broke into a gleeful laugh, so -well assumed that it deceived her. “What’d I tell you, eh? Bob -Warburton come through like a leetle major. Loaned me two thousand -dollars on my note. Think o’ that! Ain’t that jest dandy? Come on, -now! Chuck some duds in a valise. We’re startin’ right out on a big -blow-out. We’re goin’ to see the world—me an’ you.” He romped around -the room with her, like an overjoyed schoolboy. - -“But, daddy,” she protested in bewilderment, “how can I? Why, you -don’t give me time to——” - -“You don’t need nothin’. I’m goin’ to tog you out complete with a -hull bran’-new outfit, soon’s we hit the city. Hurry up! We ain’t -got all day to talk about it, Dot. We’re strikin’ south to Mirage. -I’m on’y takin’ a shirt an’ a pair o’ socks, myself.” He headed for -his room. - -“But who’s to look out after the place, the chickens and stock -and——” - -“I got it all fixed for a man to come this afternoon—Billy Higgins,” -he called out. “He’ll ride over from camp every day an’ look around. -Come on, hon! Do’s I say, can’t you? That driver is chargin’ fifteen -dollars an hour.” - -Dot capitulated. She hurried into her room and closed the door after -her. Hesitating an instant, she locked it cautiously; then she -dragged a suit case out of the closet and spread it open on the bed. -For some seconds, she stood motionless, undecided, in troubled -thought. In the middle drawer of her bureau lay a fortune in stolen -money. During her father’s absence in camp she had carefully counted -it over to satisfy her suspicions that it was stolen money, and she -had found that it reckoned up to the amount Lemuel had told her was -stolen by Billy Gee from the paymaster’s car of the Mohave & -Southwestern Railroad Company—twenty thousand dollars. - -What must she do with it? Here she was the custodian of a great sum, -ill gotten, placed in her hands without her knowledge or consent, -without a word or hint as to what was expected of her. She had been -made an innocent accomplice. She knew that, in the circumstances, -were the house to be searched for this missing booty of Billy Gee, -she would have a desperate time, if the officers should discover -that drawerful of bills, to account for the presence of an amount of -money the same as that lost by the railroad company. - -Until her father had burst in upon her, urging this uncalled-for -hurried departure that for some unexplained reason he had given her -not the slightest hint about, she had quite decided that the best -course for her to pursue was to go to Geerusalem and turn the booty -over to the constable or the postmaster, stating simply that she had -found it and wished it returned to its rightful owners. This she had -determined to do in person; for if there was one thing on which she -had firmly settled her mind, it was that Lemuel should be kept in -ignorance about the money. After his display of desperation last -night and the fearful threats he had made, she shrank from telling -him of her discovery, lest in a moment of recklessness he might be -tempted to force her to surrender the treasure to him, and -appropriate it to his own uses. She had grown sick at the terrifying -thought. - -Another thing—one that had impressed her more deeply than she really -knew at the time—was the realization that Billy Gee had left her -this fortune out of appreciation for the little she had done for -him. The act bespoke the character of man he was at the core—plunder -though this fortune represented. It was about as big a gift as he -could have made to her. He had risked his life to get it—been shot -and bled white in the bargain. While she and her father had been -quarreling over him he had lain in the darkness of her room, -listening. He had learned that they were very poor, that the dream -of the Huntingtons had been to give their daughter an education, -that, notwithstanding their financial straits, that daughter was not -in favor of surrendering him—outlaw, though he was—to gain the -comforts that ten thousand dollars’ reward would bring. She also -knew that later, in the hayloft, he had purposely misled her as to -the contents of his saddlebags, in order to make his secret gift -certain of acceptance. - -Just now she stood in her room and pondered over what she should do -with this unwelcome gift, since her father’s impetuousness had upset -her plans. She reasoned that it would be nothing short of folly to -leave the money hidden until their return, thus risking its loss by -fire or theft. There seemed no other way except to take it along -with her. They wouldn’t be gone but a few days, perhaps two weeks at -the longest. Once back home she could carry out her original -intention of putting it in the hands of the Geerusalem authorities -for transmission to the general offices of the Mohave & Southwestern -Railroad. - -So thinking, she opened the bureau drawer and hurriedly wrapped up -the stacks of bills in her mother’s old silk shawl, tied the bundle -securely with string, and packed it into the suit case along with -some articles of clothing. Then she began dressing, in a growing -fury of joyful anticipation and excitement, for her long-wished-for -trip to a big city was at hand, her longing of years to be gratified -at last. - -Half an hour after Lemuel arrived from camp he was locking the front -door of his home and placing the key under the mat for Sangerly. He -walked slowly down the gravel path to the gate and crossed the -garden toward the trim little grave under the drooping pepper tree. -Wistfully he gazed down at it, and the moisture crept into his eyes -when he saw Dot kneel and kiss the tips of her fingers and press -them gently on the mound. - -“Little angel mother,” she breathed. “How I wish you were going with -us. How I wish you were here, darling.” - -The chauffeur, sitting in the machine outside the gate, averted his -head and looked away into the gaunt desolation of the plain. - -Shortly afterward, father and daughter were comfortably settled in -the rear seat and, like two children embarking on some glorious -adventure, began their journey down the hot sandy floor of Soapweed -Plains, bound for the dreary railroad station of Mirage. They -reached there around four o’clock, ate dinner in the combination -saloon-store-restaurant, and boarded the northbound train at dark. - -It so happened that, owing to the joyous anticipation and breathless -conjecture with which the trip itself engrossed her, not until the -conductor came down the aisle to collect the tickets was Dot -suddenly reminded that she had not asked her father how long he -contemplated being gone. The uniformed person had passed on when she -broached the subject. - -“Are we going to be away very long, daddy?” she asked. - -“We sure are,” said Lemuel cheerfully. “We’re out for a big time. -What I mean—big. An’ we’re goin’ to see everything worth seein’, you -kin gamble on that, Dot. If there’s anything your little heart -desires, jest say so.” - -“But how long—about a week or so?” she persisted. “There was -something I wanted to attend to when I get back.” - -“Get back?” laughed Lemuel. “Now listen here, hon! Furst, me an’ -you’s goin’ to have the fling of our young lives. Then——” He broke -off and, looking fixedly at her, grinned oddly. “You’ve seen the -last of Soapweed Plains, Dot, for anyway three years. I’m toggin’ -you up like a queen, an’ you’re sailin’ into Longwell’s Seminary for -to be edjucated. That’s the main reason why I borried the money.” - -Dot stared at him incredulously. Then, marking the strange set to -his jaws, the triumphant glint in his habitually mild eyes, cold -fear gripped her heart suddenly. - -“Three years!” she choked. “Daddy, you’ve—you’ve deceived me. You’ve -lied to me——” - -“I’ve done it for your own good, Dot. ’Tain’t wrong to lie when it’s -to help some one you love.” He paused. “You say you got somepn to -’tend to. Is that why you want to git back home?” he asked, his mind -on the missing paymaster’s money. - -“Not altogether. But—but it’s one of the reasons.” - -“An’ it’s important, ain’t it, honey?” As he spoke he bent his head -and gazed up into her face, his expression crafty, knowing. - -“Not so important as caring for you, daddy,” she returned brokenly. -“Nothing in this world matters so much as that.” - -He did not press the subject. He sat back in his seat and studied -his horny hands wistfully. - -Shortly afterward, Dot began arguing against this decision of his to -send her to school. They talked for two straight hours, she -objecting on every ground she could think of, he countering -stubbornly, now besting her, again being himself bested. Spiritedly -she protested. She was too old to go to school; they needed the -money for other purposes; she wouldn’t leave him to live alone on -the ranch; she didn’t want an education. But all her vehemence and -tears and supplications were of no avail. There was no shaking the -determination of Lemuel Huntington. - -So, in sheer exhaustion, she finally gave up and, lapsing into -silence, devoted herself to the solution of the momentous problem of -what she should do with the stolen treasure she was bringing along -with her, wrapped in her mother’s old silk shawl. - -After long reflection she concluded she would turn it over to the -San Francisco authorities on her arrival, reasoning that it really -did not matter which civil authorities received it, since it would -be forwarded to the railroad company anyway. Having relieved her -mind thus, her thoughts drifted to Billy Gee, and she found herself -wondering lingeringly about him and if the wound in his head were -giving him much trouble, where he might be in that great, lonely -void of desert far to the south, if he were thinking of her. -Foolish, vagrant little thoughts, they were; but somehow, they -seemed to her to be very serious indeed, and so pleasing as to bring -a warmth to her cheeks, and so tragic as to cause the tears to form -in her eyes. - -Lemuel sat and also reflected, but his thoughts were of another -sort, a legion of sleep-dispelling meditations that crowded his -brain, clamoring for review. He was so jubilant with himself and the -fulfillment of the big dream of his life. His mind in a riot of -joyous anticipation, he sat planning to make his brief stay in San -Francisco an epochal event. - -He threw back his head against the high back of his plush seat and -chuckled silently at the clever manner in which he had enticed Dot -into leaving the ranch, how splendidly his lie about borrowing two -thousand dollars from Sheriff Warburton had worked out, how -successfully he had manipulated affairs so that Dot would possibly -never know that her father had played the sneak to effect the -capture of Billy Gee. Yes, and there was also considerable -satisfaction for him in the knowledge that he, Lemuel, had spirited -his Dot out of the country before Sangerly and his bloodhounds could -even see her, not to mention interview her. - -He told himself that if for no other reason than to insure her -against annoyance he would likewise keep her whereabouts secret. No -one would know that she was attending the Longwell Seminary until -the search for the missing twenty thousand dollars had come to an -end. Meanwhile, he would contrive to question her and find out what -she knew about those saddlebags and their contents. Dot would tell -him, of that he felt quite sure; and some day perhaps, when the -whole thing was ancient history, and she had graduated with high -honors, he would tell her how her father had captured, -single-handed, the far-famed daring desperado, Billy Gee, and why he -had done it. - -Morning found him still wide-eyed, staring unseeingly out of the car -window at the multiplying miles of rich San Joaquin Valley acreage -flashing by. Around seven o’clock the train stopped for a few -minutes at Tracy, a junction town, and passengers from the north -began piling in. - -A newsboy came hurrying down the aisle, clamoring his wares -excitedly. Lemuel hailed the youngster and bought a paper. Dot still -slept and, seeing this, he settled himself comfortably in the seat -to read. The following instant he caught his breath in sudden alarm, -and sat bolt upright. His face paling through its tan, he glared -with bulging eyes at the three words printed in large display type -across the top of the first page. - - DESPERATE BANDIT ESCAPES! - - Billy Gee Attacks Sheriff, Plunges From Fast-moving Train Near - Burbank. - -For a long moment, Lemuel continued to glare fearfully at those -headlines, then he sank limply back in his seat. - -He felt Dot stir and, looking guiltily at her, saw that she was -waking. Whereupon, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and -presently rose and walked unsteadily out of the coach, heading for -the smoking car. From that instant forward, he carried day and night -in his mind a picture of Billy Gee standing in Sheriff Warburton’s -room in Geerusalem and he heard again the bandit’s ominous threat: - -“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m -huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! -Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!” - - -CHAPTER VIII—LAVENDER AND OLD LACE - -Alexander Sangerly—“Lex” Sangerly, his friends called him—was a -democratic type of Californian, who did not believe that the fact of -his father being Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern -Railroad system should of necessity mean that that father’s son must -take any exalted credit unto himself. So, notwithstanding the fact -that Lex held the important post of division superintendent of the -road, he was not above meeting the rank and file of his departments -on their own plane, mixing with them, addressing them by their given -names, and conducting himself generally in business as well as -social affairs very much like any red-blooded human. - -Incidentally, it might be well to mention that, although only -twenty-seven years old, he was already blossoming out into a -prominent railroad figure, with the likelihood of making good future -presidential timber for some transcontinental road. - -The gold camp of Geerusalem was Lex’s first acquaintance with a -desert bonanza settlement, that is, one in the high noon of its -prosperity, its mines giving up great fortunes, its people drunk -with success scattering their wealth prodigally, its night life -unlicensed, violent with rashness and lust; yet Geerusalem with all -its lawlessness gripped him with a compelling fascination, the -fascination one feels who looks for the first time on something -horribly real, incredible of human toleration, though tolerated and -upheld by a civilized population that drops back to the primitive -when the law is weak. - -However, apart from his curiosity and interest in this wild, waspish -desert camp, Lex had by chance discovered, on the very day of his -arrival, a far more important reason why he was glad he had come to -Geerusalem. As he was driving his high-powered roadster up the main -street his eye alighted on a modest little signboard nailed above a -tiny store, crowded between two large adobe buildings. It read: -“Mrs. Agatha Liggs, Dry Goods.” - -He had read that modest little sign, with a thrill of joy. There -could be but one Agatha Liggs in the whole wide world, he told -himself, and that was the dear little woman whom he had known far -back in his boyhood days—the mother of his chum and pal, Jerome -Liggs. - -His earliest memory of Mrs. Liggs and her son dated back to when he -was five years old, living in the archaic town of San José, with his -parents, during the dark period of his father’s striving to rise out -of the rut of clerkship. The two families had been next-door -neighbors for a number of years, and he remembered Jerome’s father -as a big jovial man, who used to drive a truck by day and play cards -with the elder Sangerly by night. - -Jerome and Lex attended the same school. Mrs. Liggs’ son was a -sturdy, fearless youngster, the dunce of his class. Lex, on the -other hand, was timid and delicate, studious and a star scholar. -Singularly enough, they had formed a great friendship, perhaps -because of their very contrariness of character one to the other and -their natural tendency to lean on each other, as it were. Lex never -really knew how many times doughty Jerome had stepped in and -thrashed a boy bully for him, but he did know that these services -more than amply repaid him for the innumerable times that he had -helped his champion with problems in arithmetic, grammar, spelling, -and the rest of the educational mysteries. Nor could he ever -remember the number of occasions he had shared Jerome’s bed -overnight; nor had he ever forgotten the countless fat slices of -Mrs. Liggs’ pumpkin pie he had devoured. - -Up to the age of twelve, this Damon-Pythias comradeship had -continued uninterruptedly. Then came the day when Sangerly, senior, -had invented a cold-storage system that had promptly found marked -favor with the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad, with the result that, -besides purchasing his patents, it employed him to oversee the -installation of the apparatus in its refrigerator cars. - -In the years following the departure of the Sangerlys from San José, -the Liggs’ family had dropped out of sight. Lex had once heard from -a mutual friend that Jerome’s father had been killed in an accident, -and that the widow had moved to the southern part of the State. But -though he had never found out what had become of him, he always -retained a tender memory of his boy chum, and there seemed nothing -that could ever blot out his respect for the lowly pumpkin pie. Now -here at last, he had suddenly discovered, in this uproarious -frontier settlement of Geerusalem, of all places, the motherly -little Mrs. Liggs. - -It is scarcely to be wondered at then, that after his talk with -Lemuel Huntington in the U. & I. saloon, and before he began his -search for the vanished twenty thousand dollars, he must first pay a -visit to that diminutive dry-goods store on the main street. At the -very moment that Dot’s father was speeding out of town in the -automobile that was to take him and his daughter on the first leg of -their journey to San Francisco, Lex brought his roadster to a stop -before Mrs. Liggs’ establishment. - -He found to his surprise that the place was to all appearances -closed for the day, the blind drawn down over the display window. -Nevertheless, he knocked sharply and peered into the dark interior -through the small glass panel in the upper half of the door. -Presently the door in the rear of the store opened, and, after a -short hesitation, the proprietress herself came walking slowly -forward, wiping her eyes on her apron, arranging her white hair and -smoothing out her immaculate, stiffly-starched dress. The next -moment she was standing in the doorway, looking inquiringly at him -through her spectacles. - -“Mother Liggs! Bless your dear old heart!” he cried out in a voice -vibrant with feeling. “Don’t you know me? Lex Sangerly!” He beamed -on her, while she, squinting up at him, searched his face with -infinite gravity, a trace of suspicion in her look. - -She was a tiny, tired-out mite of a woman, around sixty-five, her -hair like snowy silk, her eyes a faded blue, large, and just now -showing indications of recent tears. Her dress, muslin and rather -old-fashionedly made, was the most correct thing in feminine attire -worn in the camp; at least, so declared the godless population of -Geerusalem. - -She studied her visitor for a few seconds, then her eyes lighted up -like twin stars. “Lex—Lex Sangerly! You dearest, dearest boy. Of all -things—Lex Sangerly! Oh, I’m so—so glad to see you, Lex. So awful -glad to see you——” She choked suddenly. - -Clutching his hand, she led him inside, locked the door and, -chattering her joy, escorted him to the little living room back of -the store. She insisted on his occupying her best chair, fixed a -footstool for him under his feet, and sat close beside him, feasting -her gaze on him, listening hungrily while he talked. And this he -did, regaling her with a summary of what he and his family had been -doing since she last saw them. It was a dazzling recital of -achievement, with happiness and success through every portion of it, -one of those inspiring narratives that makes one’s failures seem -more prodigious than they really are. - -“And now,” he concluded, “the old man has ordered me to camp out -here on this desert until I find out what Billy Gee—the notorious -outlaw who was captured last night—did with the twenty thousand -dollars he stole from our company. I guess you’ve heard all about -it.” - -She had taken up her knitting while he talked, her fingers -manipulating the needles mechanically, though her eyes never left -his face. She stopped now to disentangle a snarl and bent her head -over it, plucking nervously at the yarn. - -“Yes, I’ve heard,” she said, at last. “Have you any idea, Lex——” - -“Not the slightest. I’m making a search of Mr. Huntington’s ranch. -That’s where he was caught, you know. By the way, you must know -Huntington—a rancher, south of here?” - -She nodded as she resumed her knitting. “He made ten thousand -dollars mighty easy. The easiest money Lem Huntington ever -made—bringing in a dying man.” There was a strain of bitterness in -her tones. - -“He has rendered the community a great service, Mother Liggs; we -can’t overlook that fact,” said Lex. “This wretched scoundrel, Billy -Gee, has held up M. & S. trains for the past three years, robbed -passengers, and laughed at every posse that ever took up his trail. -He’s always been invincible, I hear, managing to slip his pursuers -whenever he wanted to. He’s been a menace.” - -“That might all be, Lex, but there’s some good in the worst of us. -You’ll admit that, won’t you?” - -He smiled. “You’re not very familiar with this crook’s exploits, I -can see that, Mother Liggs. Why, trainmen who have brushed up -against him say he’d as soon kill a man as look at him.” - -An audible gasp broke from her. Her thin face paled and set ever so -little, while into her faded eyes rose a flickering fire. - -“It ain’t true. It’s—it’s sinful for any one to say such a thing. -Lex, I want to tell you something about Billy Gee that you can -believe, because I never lie, and that is—he’s given away every cent -he ever stole. Don’t ask me how I know. Ask any man on the street, -and he’ll tell you that there’ll be more broken hearts and empty -cupboards now that Billy Gee is—is gone, than if the Geerusalem -mines shut down to-morrow.” She paused, then added: “I know it don’t -sound just right, Lex, but I wish—I wish he’d never been caught.” - -Sangerly regarded her curiously for a moment. Some appealing, subtle -sadness he saw in her face caused him to burst out with a merry -laugh and lean over and take her in his arms. - -“I wouldn’t try to disillusion you for the world, you darling,” he -cried, as he kissed her. “You nor any other woman could condemn a -man of Billy Gee’s type. You all feel for the wayward man. You pity -him. You want to help him, for that is the blessed mission of this -wonderful mother love of yours.” He digressed, with a broad smile: -“Before I forget, I want to take you out for some real joy rides in -a new roadster I have; which means, of course, that you must -introduce me around among the first families of Geerusalem. I want -to be initiated into the mysteries of bacon and beans and sour dough -bread.” - -She returned his smile and looked at him, admiration in her eyes. -“Did you meet Dot—Lem Huntington’s daughter?” she asked presently. - -“No. She’s one of the belles of the camp, I suppose?” - -“Dot Huntington is one of the finest girls in the West, Lex.” - -“Whew! You’re some little booster. Pretty?” - -“Pretty as a picture, and sensible. That’s a combination you don’t -often find, Lex, and you know it. She’s a girl any man would kneel -to,” she said solemnly. - -“Mother Liggs, you interest me. You must tell me more about this -charming young lady. I want to meet her. You see, I’ve always -believed my San Francisco girl was the prize winner, but it just may -be that this fair daughter of Geerusalem is—well, I’ll tell you -after I see her.” He paused, then resumed seriously: “Right now, I -want to hear about your own affairs. How have you been getting along -all these years? And you haven’t even mentioned Jerome. Where is -he?” - -It was very quiet in Mrs. Liggs’ living quarters, quite like a -sanctuary; the three rooms flanked on either side by drab adobe -walls and overlooking a back yard of some size, cut up into little -plots—the only flower garden in Geerusalem, with a patch of -vegetables growing in one corner. A gate opened into a narrow -alleyway that led to the rear street. - -“Jerome?” echoed Mrs. Liggs, after a short silence. She was gazing -intently at her knitting. “Jerome is dead, Lex.” She spoke slowly, -haltingly. - -“Dead!” - -He looked hard at the snowy bowed head a moment. Then he drew her -gently to him again and laid his cheek against hers. - -“I am so sorry to hear that,” he said in a voice that was tenderly -sympathetic. “How long ago——” - -“Lex, deary!” she broke in sobbingly. “Don’t let’s talk about -it—please! The wound is too fresh, the pain in my heart is too—I -can’t explain. Some of these days maybe, I’ll tell you the story. -There ain’t many that would understand—that would believe. I know -you could, ’cos—’cos you and Jerome were such good friends. When I -saw you, you looking so—so happy and prosperous, I just—I just -couldn’t help thinking that my boy——” She couldn’t finish. Burying -her face in her apron, she wept disconsolately as if her heart would -break. - -Some time afterward, she told him about herself from the day fifteen -years ago, that the Sangerlys moved from San José, and he remarked -that it was much the same tale of striving that any of thousands of -American mothers might relate—the indomitable, ceaseless struggle to -get ahead. - -“Then, after Mr. Liggs’ death, we drifted north to Marysville,” she -concluded wearily. “I went into the delicatessen business and did -well. One day, Jerome—it was a hard battle alone, Lex, but I managed -to save money, and afterward I came to Geerusalem and opened this -store. I’m the only woman in business here, and every one patronizes -me. The boys won’t allow anybody to run opposition to me,” she -added, with a faint smile. - -Two hours passed quickly, considering that Mrs. Liggs insisted that -Lex have lunch with her, disregarding his attempts to explain that -he had an appointment with his two detectives at one o’clock. - -So it was early afternoon when he finally picked up his hat and -prepared to leave. At that juncture, a sharp knock sounded on the -kitchen door, and the following moment, Mrs. Liggs was ushering -forward an outlandish, shriveled-up, old fellow of seventy, who -halted suddenly in the center of the room and fastened a pair of -watery blue eyes suspiciously on Lex. - -“This is Tinnemaha Pete, Lex,” said Mrs. Liggs. “He’s my prospector, -and some day we’re going to strike it rich. Ain’t we, Pete? This is -Mr. Sangerly. I knew him when he wore long curls, Pete, and he used -to cuddle up in my lap and go to sleep. Didn’t you, Lex?” - -“I see that ornery skunk, Lem Huntington, sashayin’ round in a -ottermobile—too cussed lazy to drive hisself,” cackled the funny, -little old man. “Hell burn his rotten hide! I’d like to—— Hoo, hoo! -I’ll fix the stink-cat. See ef I don’t! What’s yore business, Mr. -Spangaree? You’re sorter high-toned, ain’t you? City duck, what?” He -tossed a bulging canvas sack he carried on his shoulder into a -corner of the room. “There’s some rock, Agatha—tol’rable good, -tol’rable good.” - -Tinnemaha Pete was a horrible example of what the Southwestern -desert does to men who sneer at its death-dealing forces and flirt -with its snares too long. His body was warped, twisted, broken, his -skin dry and tough as weathered leather, his eyes rheumy, burned out -by sun glare. A pathetically few thin long hairs of beard still -remained to him, and a scanty rim of gray circling the back of his -bony, bald head, were the only evidences of a once shaggy brown -thatch with which nature had endowed him. - -Tinnemaha Pete, however, knew the Mohave Desert from center to -circumference better than any man of those times, it was freely -conceded. Whatever that gaunt, fiery, dead land had done to him, -however hard it had striven to lay him a paralyzed heap to roast -alive on its molten bosom, it had not killed the questing spirit of -the prospector in him. Winter and summer, for a quarter of a century -and more, he had searched and searched and searched that vast -solitude for the undiscovered treasures which his experience told -him must be somewhere embedded in those countless, chromatic ranges -that crisscrossed that untrodden principality. - -Through his years of wandering he had come to know the face of the -Mohave as intimately as he knew the vile, black, short-stemmed pipe -he smoked. What was equally, if not more, important, he had taught -Billy Gee what he knew of that desert, thereby making the bandit -invincible when fleeing over this no man’s land, with posses yelping -at his heels. - -A few minutes after the arrival of Tinnemaha Pete, Lex took his -departure. Mrs. Liggs saw him to the street door and stood watching -him wistfully as he drove away up the street. Then she shuffled -tiredly back to the living room, dropped into a chair, and buried -her face in her hands. Tinnemaha Pete peered hard at her, his lips -moving, guttural sounds issuing from his throat. - -“What ails ye?” he cried out. “What ails ye, Agatha?” - -And because he surmised and was powerless to help her, he started a -wild falsettoed string of abuse leveled at Lemuel Huntington, -Sheriff Warburton, and that destiny to whose exactions all men must -yield themselves. - -“Jerome, son!” sobbed Mrs. Liggs forlornly. “Why couldn’t you have -been like him? Dear God, what have I done that I should suffer like -this? My burden is so heavy. Lord, so awful heavy. Pete—Pete, that -was Jerome’s chum, his boyhood chum. And I—I had to tell him Jerome -was—was dead. I—I just couldn’t tell him the—the truth.” - -The queer old desert rat broke into a gale of insane laughter. “Mark -me! Cuss-durn me, you mark me, Agatha!” he squeaked excitedly, his -watery eyes afire. He trotted up to her side and shook a dried claw -of a finger into her face. “Mark ye! Let Jerome boy git clear of -that scalawag politician sheriff, an’ he’ll be off like a -jackrabbit! Hain’t I learned him how to hide an’ go seek in that -sand pile? Eh, hain’t I? Glory be, she’s a grand sand pile, Agatha! -An’ he knows her, Jerome does—every hide-out, every water hole, the -ol’ Injun trails, the ornery tricks of her an’—an’ there’s scores on -scores of box cañons, that he knows, that he kin crawl out of an’ -give Mr. Sheriff the hoss laugh. Yes, he kin. An’ nobody knows ’em, -but me an’ him. Wommin! He’ll be off like a jackrabbit, I tell ye, -wunst he’s in the clear.” He paused, glaring about the room. The -canvas sack he had thrown in the corner caught his eye. “There’s the -rock he asked you to have me git him, Agatha. It’s lousy—plumb lousy -with gold, d’ye mark? An’ the ledge’ll go down to hell, she’s that -true. I’ve called her the ‘Billy Geerusalem,’” he added in a furious -whisper. - - -CHAPTER IX—EVIDENCE TO CONVICT - -Meanwhile, Lex Sangerly met the two railroad detectives and, after a -short conference in the hotel office, the three motored out to the -Huntington ranch. It was around four o’clock when they admitted -themselves into the house with the key Lemuel had placed under the -doormat. The sleuths, Ray Coates and Harry Tyler—former -plain-clothes men of the Los Angeles police department—began an -exhaustive investigation of the grounds and outhouses. They found -the tracks of Billy Gee approaching the ranch from across the plains -and even traced the outlaw’s progress into the dwelling. It required -painstaking effort to do this last, and the continued use of a -magnifying glass by which they followed the disconnected, faint -trail of blood specks, from the spot where Dot had dragged the -wounded bandit out of the saddle until she finally got him indoors. -These two Mohave & Southwestern bloodhounds also established the -incriminating fact that Billy Gee had occupied the parlor lounge. To -them, it was a cinch case, circumstantial evidence pointing -conclusively to the outlaw having received aid either from Lemuel or -his daughter. - -As for Lex, he had lingered inside. He had made two discoveries, -both impressive ones. Wandering into Huntington’s room, he had come -upon a photograph of a girl. It was standing on the bureau—a -photograph of Dot taken a year before in Geerusalem and showing her -in the first full bloom of charming womanhood. He picked up the -picture and looked at it for a long time. It engrossed him in an odd -way, for he was struck by the freshness and sensitiveness of the -face, by the wholesome, gentle expression in the great eyes, withal, -by that indefinable charm that attaches only to things of desert -life, be they a humble wild flower, a mocking bird’s nest in a -cactus, or a daughter of the range. - -Curiosity led him at last to steal a glance into the room this -remarkably pretty girl occupied. He entered it rather hesitatingly -and surveyed its interior. It was a clean little room, plainly -furnished, but there were artistic touches of color here and there -that gave it a peculiar cheer and warmth, and in a frame against the -wall was a picture of Mrs. Agatha Liggs! The sight of that picture -pleased him. It did more. The longer he gazed at it, the greater -became that pleasure and, though he did not pause to ascertain the -cause, he felt himself grow kindly inclined toward this stranger -girl, as if, in some unknown way, he already knew her. - -Presently he made his second discovery. Inspecting the scarcely -visible, bloody finger prints of a man on the window sill, he -straightway satisfied himself that their owner had climbed out of -Dot’s room through the window. Further investigation of the soft -soil of the garden beneath that window revealed not only a man’s -tracks, but a woman’s, the latter’s showing that she had both left -and reëntered the house by the same route. - -For some moments Lex stood and thought gravely over this new angle -in the case. There was no blinking the fact that Billy Gee had been -befriended and that his benefactor was quite obviously Dot -Huntington. It seemed incredible, judging from the high praise Mrs. -Liggs had accorded the girl—and he knew Mrs. Liggs’ stanch regard -for the truth. - -Yet here was irrefutable proof pointing to a wounded man escaping -from the house, assisted by a woman, who—it was a natural deduction -in the circumstances—after she had seen him safely away, returned to -her room by a route plainly intended to conceal her actions; and the -only apparent reason for secrecy, as far as he could see, appeared -to be fear of discovery by some one in the house, that some one -being Lemuel Huntington. Granting this were true, it was more than -probable that a love affair existed between this notorious desperado -and the rancher’s daughter, of which her father was ignorant; for, -Lex argued, no girl, unless she were deeply interested in him, would -be so indiscreet as to clamber through a window, out of her own -bedroom, with a man, shot and bleeding, a man, whose presence in the -house she dared not reveal to her father. - -The footsteps of the two detectives on the back porch, disturbed his -train of thought. Presently he heard the pair tramping about the -kitchen. A few moments later, Coates—a hard-eyed, poker-faced -individual, never without a cigar in his mouth—threw open the door -and walked in. - -“We found the saddlebags, saddle and bridle, Mr. Sangerly. They’re -smeared over with blood. Somebody hid ’em pretty carefully,” he -announced, with a cocksure jerk of his head. - -“Where?” - -“In the barn. The bags were in the loft, covered over with hay. The -saddle, Tyler dug up from under a pile of old gunny sacks. There’s a -bed been made in the loft, and somebody ate lunch there not later’n -yesterday. There’s soft bread crumbs layin’ around.” - -“Then our theory that Billy Gee cached the money here is about -right, isn’t it?” said Lex quietly. - -“I’ll tell the world,” sniggered Coates. “And what’s more, he had a -swell little accomplice to help him put it over.” - -Tyler entered the room at this juncture. He was a ferretlike, wiry -man, smileless and resolute of eye, with a close-cropped, iron-gray -mustache and a permanent frown. - -“There’s nothing to it, Mr. Sangerly. We’ve got enough evidence to -pinch Huntington and his daughter on suspicion,” he said crisply. -“It’s a cinch Billy Gee got all kinds of help here. We’ve -established the fact he rode up here from across country and was -dragged into the house by a woman who doctored him on the parlor -couch. At the back of the barn, just outside the door, we find a -coupla rolled-up blankets tied for slinging over the shoulder with -this,” holding up two strips of calico for the other’s inspection; -“and in the kitchen is the apron this cloth was torn from. Now my -theory is that Huntington’s daughter——” - -“I can’t see that it makes much difference, now that this bandit has -been captured, whether he received aid or not,” interrupted Lex. -“It’s not improbable that he was given help. When a man is wounded, -people as a rule don’t stop to ask questions. But I don’t think it -follows that Billy Gee would tell any one what was in his -saddlebags. You seem to forget you’re dealing with a cold-blooded -professional highwayman with a price on his head, not a sentimental -novice. This chap isn’t a movie bad man. He’s the real thing, as we -have good reason to know. If he cached that money on this ranch, he -did it alone——” - -“I was going to say, Mr. Sangerly,” broke in Tyler respectfully, in -his turn, “that we can’t be too awful sure of this girl not being -wise. Billy Gee’s record shows he’s a damn fool with his coin—gives -it away like a drunken Indian, that’s what they say around camp.” - -“After we have satisfied ourselves completely that the money cannot -be found, it will be time enough to confront the girl, Tyler. It -doesn’t seem quite fair to me to accuse people of a thing of this -sort, to brand them accomplices of a criminal, when they have opened -their home to us as hospitably as the Huntingtons have. Besides, -Huntington is the man whom we have to thank for capturing Billy Gee -when every one else failed. You might as well say that this rancher -made a double clean-up—got away with the bandit’s swag and also -collected the reward.” - -“That’s just exactly what I’ve been thinking,” declared Coates -stoutly; “and I agree with Tyler that the girl is in on the deal. -There’s some pretty slick birds among these desert rats, Mr. -Sangerly, let me tell you. It’s damned funny to me why they beat it -out of the country, so all of a sudden. It’s the Bunker Hill, if you -want my opinion on the matter.” - -Lex gazed thoughtfully across the room, at the picture of Mrs. -Liggs. - -“And supposing they’re sweethearts, sir,” ventured Tyler. “It ain’t -impossible. The police records are crammed with stranger cases than -that. If they’re intimate, she’d be in on the game, wouldn’t she? -And it’d be the easiest thing going for her to hide that twenty -thousand where nobody’d find it. Another thing, Billy Gee, according -to all reports, has either relatives or mighty close friends in -Soapweed Plains.” - -“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, men,” said Lex finally. “I’m going back -to town to-night, and I’ll ascertain all about Miss Huntington—if -she has a sweetheart, the type of girl she is, everything regarding -the family. In the meantime, drop this accomplice business and -settle down to a systematic, thorough search.” - -It was dusk when Lex stopped his machine before Mrs. Liggs’ -dry-goods store. The night life of Geerusalem was beginning to -waken, stretching itself like some blinking giant making ready to be -off on his rampant adventuring. For five crooked blocks down the -wide gulch which sloped gently out of the hills, onto the smooth -floor of Soapweed Plains, the main street was ablaze with lights, -pouring from business houses, saloons, gambling houses, and dance -halls. Already the sidewalks were packed with as heterogeneous a -stream of humanity as may be seen only in those out-of-the-way -places of earth where men have discovered fabulous wealth bursting -from the rock. - -Here swaggered the hordes of miners coming off shift from a hundred -working properties in the neighboring hills, grimy, spattered with -candle grease, and adding to the bustle and confusion of the -gold-mad crowd, was the torrent of traffic that surged up and down -the rough, rocky thoroughfare—wagons of every description from the -slim rattletrap buckboard, up through the various stages of all -known vehicles, great freighter’s outfits, horse-drawn hacks, carts, -automobiles; all these contributed to the bedlam that roared through -the hills from early dawn to midnight, incessantly from one day to -another. - -Lex stepped out of the roadster and began shouldering his way across -the sidewalk to Mrs. Liggs’ store. He suddenly noticed that the -place was open, the display window brilliantly lighted up, and he -made out over the heads of the throng, the figure of the little -proprietress bustling energetically about behind the counter, -waiting on customers. The marked difference between his visit that -afternoon, when he had found the establishment closed and its owner -showing traces of prolonged grief, and his present one, caused him -to wonder curiously. The next moment, however, an unlooked-for -incident drove the thought from his mind. - -He had almost cleared the jam on the sidewalk and was within a step -of the store entrance, when a man collided heavily with him. As he -staggered back into the arms of one of the crowd, a coarse voice -yelled in his ear: - -“What the hell! Look where you’re going, you poor fish!” - -Lex got his feet and stood blocking the other’s way, gazing steadily -at him. The press of men around them, sensing trouble, scattered -like magic, for it was no unusual thing for revolvers to flash at -the least provocation. - -The man before him was big and powerfully built, forty-five or -thereabouts, with heavy face and piercing, arrogant, coal-black -eyes. His clothes—Norfolk suit of the finest whipcord, silk shirt, -jaunty, stiff-brimmed Stetson and nap-a-tan half boots of superior -quality—his whole bearing, in fact, stamped him a person of wealth -and prominence. - -There was a tragic silence. In that brief interval, the center of -the street was a solid mass of staring humanity, the two principals -standing alone, the hub of a wide circle. Even Mrs. Liggs, attracted -by the sudden commotion, stood watching now, pale and trembling, -from the rear of the store, her eyes riveted on the contestants -facing each other before her door. - -“Perhaps you’d better look where _you’re_ going, neighbor,” said Lex -finally, in a dangerously quiet tone. - -The other’s lip curled, and his eyes flamed with contempt. He -sneered. “I see you don’t know who you’re talking to——” - -“I don’t care and have no desire to know,” cut in Lex. “What I want -to know is, are you looking for trouble?” - -The man regarded him hatefully before he spoke, then he said in low, -sibilant tones, intended only for Lex’s ears. “One word from me—one -signal—and you’d be riddled with bullets where you stand. I don’t -like you, stranger, because you’re just that, a stranger. But I -admire an equal, able and willing to fight for his rights. You say -you don’t care to know me. You ask me if I’m looking for trouble. -You haven’t got a chance in the world against me. Look for -yourself!” - -Without averting his gaze from Lex’s face, he raised his voice: -“Hey, gang! Quintell men come forward!” - -A sudden movement ran over the multitude. The open circle began -filling rapidly, as scores of hitherto curious onlookers obeyed the -order. They halted, silent and ominous—members of that army of -undesirables which forms a large percentage of the population of -every new mining camp—and focused their hard eyes on Lex. - -The man chuckled easily. “You’re a stranger in camp and don’t -appreciate what it means to brush up against Jule Quintell. I hope -we understand each other—that we’ll spare each other future -embarrassment,” he said, with biting emphasis. - -Dismissing his followers with a wave of his hand, he turned on his -heel and strode away. Lex, furious with chagrin, looked after him -for some seconds, then he entered the little dry-goods store. - -“Oh, deary!” burst out Mrs. Liggs, hurrying up to him. She closed -and locked the front door, and taking his hand in her own trembling -one, started leading him toward the rear of the place. “I nearly -fainted with fright, Lex. Do you know who he was? Jule Quintell, -honey, the awfulest man. He’s the worst crook, controls the camp, -and is that powerful he just laughs at law and order. Men are killed -off like flies, and they say Jule Quintell is back of every murder. -Oh, it’s terrible, Lex! Nobody is safe, and he’s got spies all -around, and they jump mining claims, and if the owner shows fight, -they shoot him like a dog. I was just scared to death.” - -She made him comfortable in the cozy living room and chattered on, -recounting the lawless deeds of “Boss” Quintell and his gangster -following. - -“One of these days he’ll get what’s coming to him, Mother Liggs. -He’ll pick on the wrong man at the right time,” said Lex slowly. - -A little later, they had dismissed the subject and their talk -drifted to the search being made on the Huntington ranch. - -“Developments have brought about a rather unusual situation,” he -told her, “and I have come to you, hoping you might be able to clear -it up. In the first place, I want to ask you a question, because I -know you are an intimate friend of the Huntingtons. I saw your -picture occupying a prominent place out there. Has Miss Huntington a -sweetheart? Have you ever known her to be interested in any man?” - -Mrs. Liggs thought a moment, then shook her head decidedly. “No, and -what’s more, she never speaks of men in that way, Lex. She’s -different from any girl I’ve ever met, for her age—she’s eighteen. -She’s studious and likes to read novels and—well, dream. She sits -and spins yarns to me every time we visit one another. Yarns she’s -made up, mind you, and they’re as clever as any you ever read. But -I’m positive she never kept company with a man in her life. I’d know -if she did, Lex.” - -He looked across the room, puffing his cigarette in silence. - -“The reason I ask, Mother Liggs, is that our investigations lead us -to believe that she helped Billy Gee, provided him with food, a bed -and——” - -“She did!” burst out the little old lady, in sudden excitement. - -“Yes, and from all appearances, hid him in her room. I want to be -sure of their relations to each other, for it is quite probable that -if he knew her he would tell her about the stolen money and either -confide in her where he had hidden it or have her conceal it for -him.” He followed by giving Mrs. Liggs a detailed account of the -search and what it had revealed. - -She listened intently, eagerly, drinking in every word, a strange, -exultant light that he did not note gleaming far back in the depths -of her faded blue eyes, her cheeks tinged with a faint rosiness that -heightened the charm of her kindly countenance. - -“And if you don’t find this money, Lex, I hope you don’t intend to -arrest Dot!” she cried suddenly. “Why, that would be a terrible -outrage—horrible. That girl is a dear, sweet, innocent child who -wouldn’t do wrong for anything. Why, that’s just like her to help -him—wounded and bleeding and all that!” - -He smiled at her vehement defense of the girl. “I don’t think we -will have occasion to go that far in the matter, Mother Liggs,” he -said reassuringly. “As I was driving in from the ranch it struck me -that, confronted with what evidence we have and more that we’ll get, -showing that Miss Huntington presumably aided him, Billy Gee will -confess—make a clean breast of everything, rather than have her -incriminated. Any man would, out of a sense of gratitude, if for no -other reason.” He paused and added slowly: “Personally, from -everything you’ve told me about her I don’t believe a young woman of -Miss Huntington’s standing would stoop to such a thing as keeping -stolen money—supposing, of course, that Billy Gee turned it over to -her. Isn’t that so?” - -Mrs. Liggs did not reply. She studied him curiously for a few -seconds, then she said gravely: - -“You haven’t seen the bulletin board this afternoon, have you? Well, -Billy Gee escaped from Sheriff Warburton and—and got away, Lex. If -you’ll stay to supper I’ll tell you all about it. And I’ve got—what -do you think, deary? Pumpkin pie! Only it’s made out of canned -pumpkin.” Laughing, she took both his hands in hers and drew him -into the kitchen. - - -A hundred miles southwest of Geerusalem, where the Mohave Desert -grudgingly recedes and the great arable belt, rich in orange and -lemon groves, orchard and vineyard, follows the coast line -unswervingly, north and south, a dozen posses were scouring the -country for one man. - -Four hours before, Billy Gee had turned on Sheriff Warburton in the -lavatory of the smoking car and struck him down with the heavy -“bottle-cuffs” that shackled his hands. He had taken the key from -the unconscious official’s pocket, unlocked the manacles, slipped -them on Warburton, and gagged him so that he could not cry out. Then -he had leaped through the lavatory window, while the train was -straining on an upgrade, out of the desert. - -At the next station, a brakeman had discovered the sheriff lying -helpless on the floor. The train was stopped, the wires tapped, and -the alarm broadcasted around for hundreds of miles. - -Sheriff Warburton, overwhelmed with humiliation, raging impotently, -mustered a posse and began combing the neighborhood where his -prisoner had broken for freedom. Other posses were organized. A -dragnet, twenty-five miles in diameter, started closing in. Hour -after fruitless hour passed. On the evening of the same day that he -had left Geerusalem with the notorious bandit in custody, Sheriff -Warburton, baffled, discomfited, offered one thousand dollars for -the man’s capture, dead or alive. - -At ten o’clock that night, when it seemed certain that Billy Gee had -dropped from sight, Warburton wrapped up his gold-filled star of -authority, together with his credentials and a letter, resigning as -sheriff of San Buenaventura County. These he mailed to the chairman -of the board of supervisors, but he did not abandon his hunt for -Billy Gee. On the contrary, he prosecuted that hunt with a -persistence bordering on frenzy, spending days and nights in the -saddle, sleeping and eating only when exhaustion threatened to put -him out of the running, and he registered a violent oath against the -outlaw, if they ever should meet again. - -Two weeks later the newspapers carried a story about the finding of -a dead man in a lonely desert cañon, some distance from the little -town of Burbank. Authorities differed as to the length of time the -man had been dead. Identification proving quite impossible, it was, -nevertheless, decided that the remains were those of Billy Gee. -Ex-Sheriff Warburton alone would not believe it. He continued his -relentless, indefatigable search. - - -CHAPTER X—A DISCLOSURE - -Dot Huntington found San Francisco to exceed her wildest imaginings -of what a great city really was. Born of the desert and having been -an intimate part of that desert all her life and, until the -establishment of Geerusalem, knowing nothing of those centers where -men forgathered and schemed and battled and died in a fury of -commercial competition, she had always pictured a metropolis as -similar to an ant hill for life and activity; but she had never -thought it so spectacular, so dynamic in potentialities, so gigantic -a thing as that architectural pile which greeted her eyes on that -memorable morning when she and her father crossed the seven miles of -green bay from Oakland, toward the picturesque horizon of buildings -rising step on step, miles long and wide, tier on tier, up the steep -slopes of hills that hid their crests in a low-lying, fleecy bank of -fog. - -And Market Street, Mississippian in its aspect, flowing full with -its surging, irresistible stream of pedestrians and traffic, -appalled her. The chaotic blockade of street cars at the Ferry -terminal, the deafening thunder and shriekings of the busy -Embarcadero, the mad confusion of it all, bewildered her—and -bewildered Lemuel still more. - -It was during the period when the Golden West Hotel was to the -country people of California what the Congress, in Chicago, is to -the political world of the nation—the one and only caravansary. -Accordingly, Lemuel set his blind course for the Golden West Hotel. -He did this after making a number of inquiries on how to reach his -destination, regarding with considerable suspicion each one of his -informants, for he had heard about the suaveness of confidence and -bunko men and their artful way of misdirecting their victims to dens -of iniquity, abounding in trapdoors and subterranean dungeons and -murderous gangsters, and he felt that he was just a trifle too smart -to fall a prey to the sly brotherhood. - -“Them slick fellers’s got to git up purty early in the mornin’ to -beat yore dad, Dot,” he grinned proudly, as they started off in a -taxi. “I ain’t up on city ways, but I’m kinder foxy myself. That’s -what comes of knockin’ around with Lennox, the minin’ engineer, an’ -the rest of them Geerusalem sports, like I’ve done.” - -But with all Lemuel’s belief in his own sagacity, when it was a -matter of pitting his wits against the other fellow’s, he failed to -notice that, ever since their arrival at the Ferry terminal, he and -Dot had been the object of intense secret interest on the part of a -man who, once his sharp eyes rested on them as they came in sight -with the rest of the passengers, trailed them about until they -entered the taxi. - -He was a broad-shouldered, powerful individual, perhaps in the late -thirties, with a red, coarse face and expressionless blue eyes. His -clothes were cut along flashy lines, his shoes of glittering patent -leather, his hat worn jauntily. But his very appearance, -particularly when he walked, somehow impressed one that he was more -at home in the hills than in the city. As Dot and her father began -their slow progress up Market Street the stranger sprang into -another taxi and instructed the driver to follow the first. - -Arriving at the hotel, Lemuel and his daughter registered and were -shown to a cheerful little suite overlooking the street. They sat -down in the parlor and stared at each other. - -“My!” exclaimed Dot breathlessly. “Isn’t this just—just wonderful?” - -“Geerusalem ain’t got nuthin’ on this burg, has it? Sounds like ol’ -hell broke loose—an’ I’m not cussin’ when I say that, Dot,” chuckled -Lemuel. - -Her eyes kindled, and she rose from her chair and went over and -threw her arms around his neck. “It’s such a glorious adventure. I—I -only wish poor mother was with us. Don’t you, daddy?” - -He didn’t answer for some seconds, then he said in a strained voice: -“That’s the one thing that spoils it all for us, honey—her not bein’ -here. All her life, she looked for’ard to this hour, when me an’ -her’d bring you to Frisco to go to school. Thank God, the hour’s -come—anyway!” - -During the next two days they devoted themselves almost entirely to -getting acquainted with the vicinity of the hotel. Then they began -taking short tours of investigation, growing bolder and bolder until -they were finally promenading the miles of streets which form the -downtown business section, even venturing a trip to the Cliff House -where they spent hours gazing in speechless amazement across the -Pacific—the first ocean they had ever seen. - -Having become thus partially inured to metropolitan conditions, they -found time to think of other matters. Naturally enough, it was -Lemuel’s desire to get his daughter an outfit; the best that money -could buy would be none too good, he told himself. That daughter, -like any woman, was not averse to being prettily clothed, so they -started window shopping, staring at the gorgeous displays along -lower Grant Avenue, trying to decide on what would be not alone -stylish, but attractive and worth the money as well. - -But by the end of the fourth day it became quite apparent to them -both that choosing a young lady’s first wardrobe destined to give -her the required distinction demanded by so select an institution as -Longwell’s Seminary was clearly not a job for the uninitiated. They -repaired to their little parlor to study over the problem. Lemuel -was smoking his after-dinner cigar and frowning at his new tight -shoes. - -“I have it, daddy!” burst out Dot suddenly, breaking a long silence. -“Telegraph to Mrs. Liggs and ask her to come. You can pay her fare -and expenses. You remember, she used to live in San José and she -knows all about what is proper and tasty in dress. She can get -somebody to take care of the store for a few days. I’m sure she’ll -come.” - -But Lemuel shook his head severely. “We don’t want Mrs. Liggs -pickin’ out yore things, Dot, an’ that settles it,” he said shortly. - -“Why not? She’s in the dry-goods business and knows all about -clothes.” - -“She’s old-fashioned, that’s why, an’ she wouldn’t talk to me when I -seen her——” - -“She is not old-fashioned, daddy, and you know it,” cried Dot -spiritedly. “Didn’t she make me that pretty pink dress last summer, -and everybody admired it? You said yourself it was nicer than -anything you’d seen on me. I know that if we try to buy a wardrobe -ourselves, they’ll—— Well, we’ll have to take what they tell us is -the latest style, because we don’t know any better. Can’t you see -that you’ll save money and everything by having Mrs. Liggs come? -Please send for her, daddy!” - -They discussed the matter for upward of an hour, and because her -father’s objections were weak and unconvincing, Dot argued all the -more strenuously in an effort to have her way. Nor was Lemuel so -greatly opposed to her plan as he pretended to be. He firmly -believed that Mrs. Liggs was the very person who could discriminate -between what was modish and what was not in a young lady’s apparel, -and that, furthermore, she would not hesitate to close up her store -for a week and board the first train north if she knew that Dot -required her services in a matter of such moment. - -What he was endeavoring to do was make up his mind whether he should -tell his daughter how he had captured Billy Gee, confess his -perfidy, and send for Mrs. Liggs, or object flatly to her and, -thereby, throw himself on the tender mercies of some clerk trained -in the subtle art of selling goods; for he realized only too well, -that were their little old friend to come, she would lose no time in -telling Dot about the sensational capture of the bandit, and how he, -Lemuel, had been lionized by the population of Geerusalem. Under -other circumstances he would have rather welcomed this, but to have -his daughter learn how treacherously he had acted, was something he -dreaded. He felt that she would not be able to understand his object -back of the act. Again, Mrs. Liggs’ unaccountable treatment of him -that morning when he rode into Geerusalem rankled considerably. Of -course, he told himself, there was always the possibility that she -had not recognized him, for her eyes were not as keen now as he had -once known them to be. - -So, after finding himself being slowly convinced by Dot almost -against his will that they were absolutely dependent on Mrs. Liggs -to solve the wardrobe problem for them, he finally yielded to his -half-formed notion to tell his daughter everything—except the fact -that Billy Gee had threatened his life; for he would not awaken -unnecessary fears in her lest she might refuse to attend school. - -He cleared his throat presently and said: “I’m goin’ to tell you -somepn, Dot—because I’d ruther you heard it from me than an -outsider—an’ I want you to forgive me for carin’ more for yore -future than for yore opinion of yore old dad.” He paused and glanced -anxiously at her. “I ketched Billy Gee as he was leavin’ the barn -that night, an’—an’ I c’llected the ten thousand dollars reeward.” - -She had been sitting on the arm of his chair, smoothing his thin, -gray hair, idly. Now she started suddenly, and a hard gasp escaped -her. Rising from her seat, she came around in front of him and stood -looking sharply down into his face. - -“You turned him over—over to Sheriff Warburton?” she asked hoarsely. - -“I did, Dot—to git the money to give you an edjucation. I had to lie -to you, much as it hurt. But—but he got away. He jumped off the -train an’ they ain’t bin able to find hide or hair of him,” he -added, grinning expectantly at her. - -“He got away! He got away—again—from Sheriff Warburton!” - -“Yeh. An’ plumb disappeared. I bin watchin’ the papers. Poor Bob was -so bruck up over losin’ him, he quit the sheriff job.” - -She stared intently at him a moment, then threw back her head and -laughed aloud—a silvery, daring laugh. - -“I’m glad! Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, a catch in her throat. - -Lemuel was gazing narrowly at her, missing nothing; and he noticed -the warm flush come and go in her cheeks. He had never seen such a -brilliant light in her eyes before. He marveled vaguely. - -“Well, I ain’t glad, that’s sure,” he said at last, with a hollow -chuckle, but the significance of his words was lost on her. - -“Tell me all about it, daddy. And you got all that money for—for -capturing him? And he’s free? I’ll forgive you, then.” - -Whereupon, he began an apologetic confession, relating how he had -suspected that she knew the hiding place of the bandit, how he had -spied on her, followed her from the house and seen her mount the -steps into the hayloft, on that memorable night; how he had -surprised Billy Gee and delivered him over to Warburton; how he had -returned home by way of the field and climbed into bed. - -Dot listened in silence, her eyes averted, an odd sympathy in her -face; but she fairly gloated over the paper which Lemuel had -carefully preserved, giving the stirring particulars of the outlaw’s -subsequent escape. - -“You’ll notice it says that the twenty thousand dollars he stole -from the paymaster is missin’,” said Lemuel pointedly. Her obvious -interest in Billy Gee disturbed him. “Ain’t it funny how it’s got -lost? What d’ye reckon could ’a’ happened to it, eh, Dot?” - -She glanced up from her reading and found him studying her -strangely. She thought there was deep suspicion in his look. Or was -it craftiness, greed? - -The recollection of that wild outburst of his in the kitchen, back -home, flashed into her mind. Much as she despised herself for the -feeling of distrust that kindled in her breast, she decided she -couldn’t be sure of him, that he was not to be relied on. Regardless -of the fact that he now had money, might he still not be -tempted—particularly since no one had the remotest inkling of the -whereabouts of the bandit’s loot—to keep it, if she confided in him -that Billy Gee had left it for her and that she was only waiting an -opportunity to return it to its rightful owners? It was a frightful -thought, she knew—a base, horrible thought for a daughter to -entertain toward a father so self-sacrificing and loving as he -was—but try as she would she could not rid herself of it. - -“It is funny, isn’t it? Don’t you suppose, though, that they’ll make -a search for it?” she asked, her innocence well assumed. There was a -curious interest back of the last question, but he failed to notice -it, watching as he was for some sign of nervousness or apprehension -in her face. - -“They already started. A young feller named Sangerly—his old man’s -manager of the road—he’s bin on the job sence the day we left. He’s -got a coupla high-class deetectives along. ’Cordin’ to what he was -tellin’ me he aims to make it poorty hot for somebody.” He said this -significantly. - -She laughed. “You don’t mean that he suspects who has the money? -That’s——” - -“He’s got it figgered out that Billy Gee had it with him when he -come to our place—an’ he’s dead right, let me tell you. When I -deelivered that—the cuss to Bob Warburton that mornin’, he didn’t -have no more’n five dollars on him. I know, ’cos I seen Bob search -him. Sangerly says he cached the twenty thousand on the ranch.” He -paused and added in low, confidential tones: “Say, Dot, you don’t -happen to know about it, do you? You seen his saddlebags, didn’t -you?” - -“Yes,” she replied evenly. “He had his saddlebags with him, and when -I asked him what they contained, he said simply that he always -carried his mother’s picture and some keepsakes along with him. He -may have left them in the barn—forgotten them. I really couldn’t -say. Did you look?” - -“No, goldarn it! I wisht now I’d hunted around for ’em. I reckon -Sangerly’ll find them. But, anyhow I’m glad you ain’t goin’ to git -mixed up in this mess, hon. It’d be turrible! The paper’d print yore -name, an’ mebby yore pitcher’d git in, an’—jest think what a -disgrace it’d be! Like as not, you’d git chucked out o’ school. -Folks’d talk awful, you bein’ c’nnected up with a train robber. An’ -no matter what you’d say wouldn’t do no good. People’d turn up their -nose an’ say, ‘She’s no better’n he is.’” He glanced at his watch -and got to his feet. “All right, we’ll send for Agatha. What’ll we -tell her?” - -Between them they worded the telegram, Dot writing it; and presently -he left the room with it, bound for the hotel office. - -Once alone, the girl began again to ponder on what she should do -with the fortune she had wrapped in her mother’s old silk shawl. -Ever since their arrival in San Francisco, her interest in other -things had, for the time being, surmounted the responsibility and -concern she felt as the unwilling custodian of this large sum of -stolen money. Her father’s words now recalled the question to her in -a most vivid way. - -It had all seemed so easy on the train—merely the inconvenience of -going to the police station, sheriff’s office, or postmaster, -turning the loot over to one of the three, with the information that -it represented what Billy Gee had stolen from the paymaster of the -Mohave & Southwestern Railroad, and that she wished it returned to -the company. - -Here and now, however, amidst all this great city’s mad rush and -confusion, she shrank from taking this step. After due reflection, -it struck her that in all probability she would be closely -questioned, and the fearful notion grew on her that there was more -than a likelihood that she would be arrested as an accomplice; she -had heard of just such things having been done. And, even as her -father had said, there was the notoriety she was of a certainty to -receive in the newspapers. Yes, everybody would believe she was a -friend of this man whose name stood for lawlessness. They might -believe she was—— She shivered at the thought. What, then, must she -do to save the romantic situation for herself? - -Racking her brains, she sat down and finally hit on another -solution. She would wait until Mrs. Liggs arrived. She would confide -in this dear little old lady, who had been like a mother to her, -tell her everything, and ask her advice. Mrs. Liggs would understand -and help her. - -Shortly afterward, Lemuel returned with the proposal that they -attend a theater, and finish the night with a sight-seeing trip -through Chinatown. - -“I bin hearin’ them Geerusalem sports braggin’ around about some -new-fangled game called chop sueys, that the chinks play, an’ I’m -goin’ to take a whirl at it ’fore I go back, even if I lose,” he -said, as he entered his room. - -They were in the midst of their dressing, when the hall doorbell -rang. Lemuel answered it and fell back with a gasp of amazement when -he recognized the smiling face of his visitor. - -“Dick Lennox! Why, you ol’ son of a gun! What’re you doin’? When, in -heck, did you git in?” he exploded, grasping the other by the hand -and drawing him into the room. - -“This afternoon. Awfully glad to see you, Lem. I’ve been on your -trail ever since you left.” - -Lemuel eyed him sharply. “How’s that? Anythin’ gone wrong?” - -“Not a thing in the world that I know. Just a matter of urgent -business,” said Lennox. - -He removed his nobby overcoat as he spoke, and arranged his tie with -fastidious care, smiling genially at the other the while. - -He was a tall, wiry chap of twenty-eight, the stamp of college days -still on him, rather prepossessing of features, with shrewd blue -eyes, and blond hair slicked back. Lemuel noticed that he had -changed his corduroys and half-boots of Geerusalem vogue for a -snappy gray suit. - -“Say, Lem, I’m about the luckiest cuss you ever heard of,” he cried, -throwing himself in a chair and lighting a cigarette. “I combed the -camp, as the detectives say, but couldn’t get a line where you’d -gone. Then I butted into the guy that drove you to Mirage. He -thought you’d come to Frisco—overheard you talking, I guess. But -Frisco is some bigger than Geerusalem, and I was euchred. I was just -figuring I’d have to give up and wait till you returned, when I just -happened to remember you once mentioned the Golden West Hotel as the -place you’d stop at if you ever hit the city. I took a chance, and -here you are. Can you beat it?” - -“I’d call it clever work, myself,” laughed Lemuel. - -“Clever? Why, you old rascal, nothing is clever alongside of what -you did the other night—bringing in Billy Gee, single-handed! -Honest, I never thought it was in you, Lem. The camp is still -excited over it.” - -Lemuel crossed his legs with dignity and hooked his thumbs in his -armpits. - -“I don’t guess there was as much to it as they think,” he said, -blowing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Of course, a man was -akcherly takin’ his life in his hands every minute, so to speak, but -you got to c’nsider I growed up fightin’ just sech hard-boiled eggs. -It’s all in knowin’ how to handle ’em.” - -“Oh, certainly! Experience is a great teacher,” conceded Lennox -seriously and coughed into his handkerchief to hide a grin. - -Dot, attired for the street, joined them at this juncture, and -Lemuel presented Lennox. - -“You remember me tellin’ you about Dick Lennox, the minin’ -engineer—the chap who introdooced me to Mr. Sangerly? This is him, -Dot. He come all the way from Geerusalem to see—— You said somepn -about business, Dick. What was it?” - -“I believe that Miss Huntington is going out for the evening,” said -Lennox, with a glance at Dot. “My errand can wait until to-morrow.” - -“Wait—nuthin’, son—not after you come all the way from Soapweed -Plains! We got time galore. Come on, what’s on yore mind?” - -Lennox brought up a chair for the girl, seated himself and said -briskly: “What do you hold your ranch at, Mr. Huntington?” - -The other stared. “You mean, what’ll I sell fur?” - -“Precisely—just as it stands.” - -“Why—why, I don’t know as I ever figgered on a price, Dick. I’ve -always looked on it as home, an’ a man gene’lly don’t——” - -“I appreciate the way you feel—a place to hang your hat and go to -when you can’t go anywhere else,” broke in Lennox genially. “But if -you were offered a—well, a handsome price. You’ll agree with me that -three hundred acres of it is worthless desert, while most of the -remaining twenty is little better than pasture.” - -“Just what do you c’nsider a handsome price?” asked Lemuel -skeptically. - -His visitor thoughtfully flicked the ash off his cigarette, into a -tray. - -“Say, seventy-five hundred dollars.” - -“Seventy-five hundred!” burst out Lemuel. He opened his mouth to -laugh but, observing the seriousness in the other’s face, the -keenness with which the blue eyes were studying him, closed it again -and rubbed his chin reflectively. - -“You’ll admit that’s about double its value,” went on Lennox, in -matter-of-fact tones. “To be perfectly frank, I have made inquiries, -and find that you just might turn it for fifteen dollars an -acre—providing you found the sort of person who would put up with -the discomforts of the desert, some one looking for solitude and -plenty of sun. So far as a man making a living there, why——” - -“D’ye mean cash down? I don’t go much on this proposition of -payments,” broke in the rancher. - -“Cash—certainly. Furthermore, I’ve been authorized to give you a -substantial sum to bind the bargain, our only stipulation being that -the transfer be made as soon as possible.” - -A short silence fell. - -“May I inquire, Mr. Lennox, the reason for this flattering offer?” -said Dot, speaking for the first time. “Perhaps I should not ask the -question but I can’t help being curious——” - -“You’re quite entitled to know, and I welcome the opportunity to -explain, Miss Huntington,” the man replied affably. “You see, -several of us have organized what we call the Geerusalem Amusement -Company. Among a number of other prospective enterprises, we intend -to establish a resort—a place of recreation a few miles out of camp, -where people can come and enjoy themselves. We have had some choice -places in view as a likely site—the Las Animas Ranch and the Cañon -Spring Ranch, for instance—but we decided that your father’s was the -logical one, since it was the nearest from town and correspondingly -more available to the public.” - -“That’s a poorty slick idea,” said Lemuel, with an approving nod at -Dot. “The ranch sure is handy, an’—— Funny I hadn’t thought of that -before.” - -“This resort, Mr. Lennox, what would it be like? you certainly can’t -mean a picnic ground or a place for outings,” probed Dot, unable to -visualize anything of a particularly attractive nature about her -desert home. - -Lennox shook his head. “I’m afraid you didn’t quite catch my -meaning. For one thing, we expect to erect a bathhouse. By sinking -wells in the bed of the Mohave River, which passes through the -property, we feel satisfied we will strike a large subterranean flow -of water. We might even put in a concrete pool, if the amount of -water warrants it. Anyhow, bathing facilities would be our big -drawing card. Added to it, of course, would be a saloon, dance hall, -gambling, doubtless a hotel, should business demand it. In a word, -we are looking to construct a modern resort in the middle of the -desert. It’ll cost a barrel of money, but we believe the venture a -good one.” - -Lemuel, in high spirits over the prospects of disposing of his land -for a price that, even as Lennox had stated, was double its market -value, rubbed his hands with ill-concealed gratification. - -“Dick, as the feller says, nuthin’ ventured’ll git you nuthin’. -Bein’ that you’ve bin out in the open with me—laid yore hand on the -table, so to speak—I’ll jest call you. You give me seventy-five -hundred fur them two quarter sections, an’ they’re yourn——” - -“Just one moment, father!” interrupted Dot. - -During Lennox’s explanation of what the contemplated resort was to -be, she had sat with her eyes fixed on the carpet at her feet, -listening in silence. Now she rose and stood before the two men, her -face set and just a trifle pale. - -“You’re not going to sell the place, father,” she continued, her -voice low but firm. “You’re not going to let them turn that clean -spot into a filthy hangout for the class of men and women who’ll -patronize it—where they’ll stagger around drunk and curse and gamble -and murder one another.” - -Lemuel’s brows knit with impatience. “But can’t you see, hon, this -here’s big money. Dick knows it an’ he knows _I_ know it. We’ll -never git another chanct like it ag’in. An’ it’ll make us -independent, an’ we won’t ever have to go back there ’cept we want -to.” - -“I really wouldn’t let my scruples stand in the way of this deal, -Miss Huntington,” advised Lennox suavely. “While what you say may be -perfectly true, in a sense, at the same time you have too much to -gain to allow mere sentiment to swerve you from what is clearly a -duty you owe to yourselves—disposing of the ranch for what is -actually a ridiculously high price.” - -“Mere sentiment!” she echoed, her eyes flashing with an odd light. -“Of course, Mr. Lennox, you don’t understand. You don’t know the -reason I’m objecting. With you, it’s a cold business proposition.” -She turned to Lemuel, watching her now with obvious ill-humor. -“Father, would you always like to think that the drunkards and -outcasts of Geerusalem were merrymaking on the land where poor -mother worked and hoped and died? That they were cursing and dancing -and carousing within hearing of her grave? That their drunken feet -were stumbling over it, desecrating it, day and night, night and -day? Would you like to think that, for—for seventy-five hundred -dollars——” Her voice broke and she stood gazing at him beseechingly -through her tears. - -For one instant, Lemuel stared aghast at her, then sudden pain -started in his eyes, twitched down his face to his lips, and set -them quivering. He swallowed hard, looked guiltily at one callous -hand, and bowed his head. - -“My God, Dick, she’s right!” he said hoarsely. “I’d—I’d plumb -forgot. I’m—I’m sorry, but I reckon nobody’s got enough money to buy -that ranch—not fur a reesort, leastways. I sure—I sure forgot. Dot, -hon, you know I wouldn’t do sech an awful thing, don’t you?” - -Some minutes later, Lennox walked out of the hotel and down the -street. At the corner, a man joined him—the same mysterious -individual who had followed Dot and her father from the Ferry -terminal on the morning they arrived in the city. - -“I expect he fell heavy, eh?” laughed the fellow, falling into step -beside the other. - -“No. He wouldn’t part with the place, Rankin,” said Lennox quietly. - -“He wouldn’t! Not for seventy-five hundred! What in hell does the -old bum want for nothing? What was his reason?” - -“Just didn’t care to sell, that was all.” - -Rankin gave a nasty chuckle. “Wait till Jule hears about it. He’ll -make that old buzzard sweat blood, let me tell you! He’ll be glad to -sell—for nothing. Why, say, for all that coin, he ought to have -throwed in the skirt for good measure. Maybe, Jule could use her—as -his stenographer.” - -Lennox stopped suddenly and confronted the other. - -“What was that, Rankin?” he asked, peering hard at him. - -“I said the Huntington kid might have to go to work for Jule as a -stenographer, before he’s through with her father,” was the surly -response. - -“Miss Huntington does not enter into this thing. Do you understand -that?” said Lennox harshly. - -They continued in silence down the street and came to a halt before -the Western Union telegraph office. - -“I’m taking the morning train back to Geerusalem,” announced Rankin. -“Before I go, I want to say one thing, and that is—I didn’t know you -were interested in Dot Huntington or I wouldn’t have made the crack -I did.” He paused and added meaningly: “I don’t think Jule did -either, or he certainly wouldn’t have sent you to put through this -deal. It’ll be up to you to convince him why it fell through when it -shouldn’t have. You get me, don’t you?” With a curt nod, he turned -on his heel and walked away. - -Lennox looked after him for a moment, then he entered the telegraph -office. As he prepared to send a wire to Jule Quintell he muttered -to himself: “I don’t blame them for refusing. She’s a wonderful -little girl.” - - -CHAPTER XI—OUTWITTED - -On the day following Billy Gee’s spectacular escape from Sheriff -Warburton, Coates and Tyler, the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad -detectives, temporarily abandoned their search for the suspected -cache on the Huntington ranch, and motored away over the fifty-odd -miles to the station of Mirage, backtracking the bandit’s course to -the distant grading camp where he had robbed the paymaster’s car. - -At Lex Sangerly’s request, the Geerusalem constable—an official -regarded more as an ornament than as a legal necessity in the -township—detailed a number of his deputies to guard the ranch -against the possibility of Billy Gee’s return; for Sangerly was more -convinced now than ever that the disappearance of the twenty -thousand dollars centered around the Huntington place. He reasoned, -therefore, that the bandit, if alive, would come back after it. - -The morning after Lemuel sent the telegram to Mrs. Liggs asking her -to join him and Dot in San Francisco, for the purpose of selecting -the girl’s wardrobe, the little dry-goods storekeeper had informed -Lex, when he voiced his surprise at her trunks and suit cases being -loaded on a freight wagon, that she was leaving for the metropolis -to be gone an indefinite period. A few days later, however, he -learned that Mrs. Liggs had sold out her business. He wondered -vaguely, regretfully, over this. It seemed to him that she at least -might have told him of her plans. He couldn’t understand it. It was -not like her—certainly, not like the Mrs. Liggs he had known in the -past, the wistful little woman whom he had found again and still -loved, second only to his dead mother. - -Meanwhile, Coates and Tyler back from their painstaking, arduous -investigation of the route Billy Gee had taken from the grading camp -into Soapweed Plains, reported to Sangerly that, even as Warburton -had stated, there was not the remotest likelihood that the outlaw -had hidden his stealings on the way. They had found that he had not -dismounted once throughout his long heartbreaking ride. - -This discovery simply served to strengthen all the more the theory -that the ranch was the site of the missing loot, and again these two -sleuths set diligently to work to find it, making an exhaustive hunt -of the premises, exploring the barn from mudsill to rafter, prying -into every nook and corner of the house, wielding the pick and -shovel in the garden, the corrals, the field, questing with the -ardor of bloodhounds each spot or locality where a man would be -tempted to conceal a stolen fortune. - -After a week of this, they talked the matter over between themselves -and they agreed that by all the signs Lemuel Huntington knew more -about the disappearance of the money than any other living man—not -even excepting Billy Gee. They were absolutely convinced that, while -his daughter might have acted solely from humanitarian reasons in -giving aid to the wounded outlaw, her father unquestionably had not -only collected the reward for capturing the fellow but had succeeded -in getting possession of the contents of the saddlebags as well. - -It was obvious, they argued, that since Huntington had taken Billy -Gee into custody so easily—desperadoes, their experience told him, -did not submit without a struggle—he had doubtless been shrewd -enough to study the bandit’s movements for some time prior to -getting the drop on him. Such being apparently the case, it followed -then that Dot’s father had seen the outlaw cache his stealings; and -after delivering his prisoner to Warburton, he had returned home and -robbed the cache, feeling himself secure in the belief that Billy -Gee would, in all probability, go to jail without divulging the -hiding place of a treasure whose value was such as to assure him of -a comfortable stake against the day of his release, providing, of -course, it was never found. Moreover, Coates and Tyler began to -discern where Huntington’s hurried trip to San Francisco was the -result of sudden panic, brought on by the haunting thought that in -some way suspicion might fasten on him and that he might be made the -object of a rigid examination which, he felt, he could not undergo. -Coupled with this notion, was their prevailing belief that -Huntington had taken the twenty thousand dollars away with him. - -However, Coates and Tyler said nothing of all this to Sangerly. They -were of the opinion that Lex was altogether too lenient in his -judgment of Lemuel Huntington; that he was letting Huntington’s -seeming hospitality stand in the way of those suspicions which, they -were positive, he must have entertained against the rancher. -Secretly, they began to regard their superior with a sort of pitying -scorn for his obvious gullibility. Their criminal-hunting instincts, -too, started rebelling at being held in leash, at being hindered in -their functioning by the dictations of a man whose faith in human -nature was, to all intents and purposes, destined to bring about the -ultimate failure of the case—immunity for Huntington, the loss of -the money. - -Brooding thus, becoming more and more disgusted with their fruitless -search of the ranch, these two conscientious investigators resolved -to take matters in their own hands, at the risk of incurring -Sangerly’s displeasure and receiving a reprimand into the bargain. -They decided that, unknown to him, they would arrest Lemuel on his -return, charge him with having made away with the twenty thousand -dollars, threaten him with disgrace—anything that would terrorize -him, wring a confession from him. - -But inquiry of the man who was caring for the ranch during the -absence of the Huntingtons brought the disturbing information that, -not only was he ignorant of the family’s whereabouts in San -Francisco, but he had not the slightest idea when Dot and her father -would return. Coates and Tyler, their plans balked at the outset, -went back to their half-hearted search, waiting grimly for the -arrival of their victim. - -Meanwhile, Lex had likewise been giving considerable thought to the -mysterious disappearance of his company’s money. He also was -beginning to recognize the necessity of carefully questioning -Lemuel, as well as his daughter, on the entire Billy Gee episode. -While he did not believe they were accomplices of the bandit in any -sense of the word, or even knew him for that matter, he felt -convinced that it was quite possible that their stories would shed -some light on Billy’s movements which would facilitate the search -Coates and Tyler were making, resulting probably in immediately -locating the whereabouts of the outlaw’s cache, for, though he would -not admit it to himself, he saw where their quest was rapidly -reaching an end, that it had seemingly been for naught. - -Ever since the departure of Dot and her father, Lex had made it his -business to ascertain the standing of the Huntingtons, in order to -fully satisfy his mind as to the type of persons they were. He had -done this quietly, so as not to arouse suspicion, and had found that -without exception the community regarded Lemuel as a sterling, -though simple, character, and held Dot in no less high esteem than -did Mrs. Liggs. About the only weakness that the father had, was an -inordinate worship of education and educated people, which found -reflection in a consuming passion to provide his daughter with those -advantages that would make her a woman of superior culture and -refinement, so the camp said. And this, to Lex’s mind, was an -unerring sign of probity in any man, a native genteelness that could -not go far wrong. - -One morning, two weeks after the Huntingtons had left for San -Francisco, Lex motored from the ranch into Geerusalem. He had said -nothing to Coates and Tyler about what he now contemplated doing, -merely instructing them to await his return. Once in camp, however, -he had the constable send a wire to the San Francisco chief of -police requesting him to locate if possible the hotel at which -Lemuel and Dot were registered. Around six o’clock that afternoon a -reply was received, naming the Golden West. - -Without loss of time, Lex sprang into his roadster and drove to the -railroad, where he caught the night train for the North. After due -reflection, he had decided to have a quiet talk with Huntington and -his daughter, one in which the detectives would have no part; for -somehow he rather resented their thinly veiled insinuations and -coarse remarks toward a man against whom they possessed not a -vestige of incriminating evidence. In fact, he was certain he could -get more from the Huntingtons through a friendly discussion, than -might be gained by the intimidating, browbeating methods employed by -inquisitors of the Coates and Tyler type. - -Besides, manlike, he was just a little bit curious to meet this -girl, Dot, of whom he had heard such flattering reports, whose -picture he had gazed on so many times during his fortnight at the -ranch, who was so close to his dear little old friend, Mrs. Liggs. - -But in one particular, his plans miscarried, for it so happened that -while he was en route to San Francisco, Lemuel—having sight-seen the -metropolis to his entire satisfaction, as well as gratified the -desire of his life by settling Dot in Longwell Seminary for her -first year—was on his way back to Geerusalem, with a headful of -progressive ideas calculated to make him in the next decade, through -the early purchase of a herd of stock cattle, the principal cowman -of southern California. Their trains passed each other in the night. - -The following day when Lemuel reached home, he was confronted by -Coates and Tyler and learned to his bewilderment and dismay that he -was under arrest for no less a crime than knowingly appropriating to -himself twenty thousand dollars belonging to the Mohave & -Southwestern Railroad Company. They ordered him into the kitchen and -began grilling him—bombarding him with questions, disputing his -answers, tripping him up, now and again hurling their accusations at -him, cajoling him in one breath, threatening him in the next. - -Hour after hour, they kept it up untiringly, mercilessly, and -because he could not give a convincing story of how he had known -that Billy Gee was hiding in the hayloft—fearing as he did to -mention even so much as his daughter’s name in conjunction with the -case—they decided to hold him on the John Doe warrant they had -procured from the local judge, pending further investigation. - -At dark, Coates mounted one of Lemuel’s horses and rode into -Geerusalem and communicated by telephone with Sangerly, senior, -Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern in Los Angeles. He gave -a brief account of the failure which had attended their search and -ended with the declaration that it was the professional opinion of -himself and Tyler that Lemuel Huntington was the thief. Stating -simply that Lex had gone to San Francisco, Coates informed Mr. -Sangerly that they desired to remove their prisoner to the county -jail for further questioning and asked for official sanction in the -matter. - -This being granted, he rushed the usual legal formalities necessary -to take a prisoner out of the jurisdiction of the Geerusalem courts -and sped away for the ranch in a rented machine, his object being to -get Lemuel out of the district before Lex returned; for now there -was not the remotest doubt in the mind of those two man-hunters that -Dot’s father was the sensational catch of their careers. - -It was a bright, starry night, warm and quiet, and it was nine -o’clock, when the driver brought the car to a halt before the -Huntington ranch. Coates sprang out and was presently pounding on -the front door. - -“Who’s there? That you, Ray?” shouted Tyler from inside. - -“Yes. Open up! Everything’s jake. We’re on our way.” - -The next moment the door was thrown open and Coates entered, gazing -in amazement at his partner, grim of face, six-shooter in hand. Back -of him, in the hall, stood Lemuel, his sunburned, leathery cheeks -yellow with alarm, his eyes bulging wildly. - -“See anybody outside?” asked Tyler. - -“Only the driver of the machine. What’s eating you anyhow? You look -like you been shot at and missed.” He chuckled roughly. - -“Yeh? Well, come on in the kitchen and I’ll show you something’ll -make your hair curl.” Turning the key in the lock, Tyler led the way -toward the rear of the house. On the oil-cloth covered table lay a -soiled old envelope containing a lead-pencil scribble. He picked it -up and handed it to Coates, who read: - - I jest cum to take my saddle an bags an pack off the 20,000 that - you dicks aint bin able to find. After this better close the - window so folks cant lissen. An dont show yore nose outside cos Im - shootin tonite. - -Coates stared at his colleague, the yellow lamplight showing his -face drawing into hard, cruel lines. A furious curse burst from him. -“Billy Gee!” he shouted. - -“Yes, damn him!” growled Tyler. “Half an hour ago I heard a knock -out front. I thought it was you coming back. That’s what I found -shoved under the door.” He indicated the envelope. “While we were -quizzing the old duffer, like a coupla rummies, Billy was getting an -earful at the window. Kids us about it, you’ll notice.” - -Coates’ withering eyes rested on the other. “He beats it with the -swag, you notice that, too, don’t you? And you’ve stuck inside here, -like a big walrus, and let him. What the hell kind of a free-lunch -detective——” - -“Say, soft-pedal that stuff, pal!” flared Tyler menacingly. “I don’t -see you busting no records—except it’s slipping the bull. If you -think I’m tearing out after this wild and woolly yegg, so’s he can -pot-shot me first flop out of the box, you’re cuckoo. Maybe I -ought’ve taken the lamp and looked under the rosebushes for him, -eh?” - -Coates made no reply. Raging silently he paced the floor. Some -seconds afterward he halted before Tyler. - -“This is certainly some swell mess. That’s all I got to say. I -phoned the chief, got his O. K., talked my head off to get the -papers signed, and rented a machine for the trip. For what? We’ve -put in two weeks in this hole for nothing. The money’s gone. Get me? -Gone! We might as well sling onto our grips and report back to -headquarters for a damn fine panning. Hot dog!” - -Tyler laughed. “Rave on! To hear you say it I’m the whole show, -ain’t I? I’m supposed to pull a fancy moving-picture stunt, while -you stand on the side lines rooting for me. Pretty soft! Sure, I get -you! You’re trying to slip out from under—make me the goat. Say, bo, -any time you think——” - -“Aw, cut it out! Let’s get out after this wise bird, see if we can’t -pick up his tracks. I got the car outside. If we don’t get a line on -him, we’ll shoot to camp and phone the old man,” cut in Coates -surlily. He turned to Lemuel, standing near the stove, rubbing his -bony hands in hopeless apprehension. “Mr. Huntington, we’re letting -you go on probation. But don’t leave the country till we tell you, -d’you understand? Take care of our traps for a few days. If we don’t -come back we’ll send for them. Come on, Tyler, we’ll——” - -He broke off abruptly, interrupted by the furious honking of the -horn of the machine waiting out on the road, the thunderous roar of -its open muffler. - -With Tyler at his heels he dashed for the front door. Clearing the -porch in one bound they sped down the garden walk, gripping their -revolvers, straining their eyes toward the car, looming black -against the sky horizon of the plains. - -“I’m cutting for the field. Watch your shots!” panted Coates in low -tones, swinging off on a tangent through the garden. - -But he had barely cleared the walk when the automobile suddenly -leaped away; and simultaneously its headlights flashed on, boring -twin avenues of white flame through the darkness in the direction of -distant Mirage. Alongside the driver, the silhouette of a man was -now visible. He megaphoned back with his hands at the two -detectives: - -“Thanks for the machine, fellers. Noo York service I call it. Give -my reegards to old Law an’ Order.” - -Coates and Tyler emptied their six-shooters wildly at the car. -Cursing frantically, they sprang in pursuit, loading and firing -their weapons as they ran. But the machine, speeding on like the -wind, whirled out of range and went on and on, plunging and -careening over the uneven road, vanished into the vastness of the -desert night. - -“That squares us. You had your fling at him,” said Tyler to Coates. - - -CHAPTER XII—REPUTATIONS AT STAKE - -Dot Huntington, though fascinated with Longwell Seminary on the one -hand, scorned it on the other. As an institution of learning she -believed it quite perfect, all that could be desired; but she -resented its strict discipline, those rigid rules which deprived her -of certain privileges which she had, with parental consent, enjoyed -all her life, chiefly, the right to come and go unchaperoned -whenever she wished and to read any book that pleased her fancy. - -However, a sudden overwhelming appetite for education seized her, -and this very readily reconciled her to the loss of her personal -liberty, for while she inherited none of her father’s passion for -culture, her ambition and pride were such as to impel her to set for -her goal those high honors for which the seminary was noted. So, -brought face to face with tomes of fact and instruction, she threw -herself whole-heartedly into the task of mastering them in order to -attain that grade of erudition which her age and matureness of mind -made necessary. In order to bring this last about, Lemuel had made -special arrangements that she take instructions from a private -teacher in order that she might go more rapidly forward. - -Again, displeased as she was with the institution’s system of -discipline, she was deeply interested in its student body. She had -never known the companionship of girls of her age before, and here -there were scores of them, and not a few daughters of the most -prominent families of the West. Having a prepossessing personality -that attracted people to her, she made friends; and these vivacious -newfound companions, added to the fascination with which her studies -gripped her, contributed greatly in causing her to put aside that -one haunting worry that had periodically harrassed her ever since -she left Geerusalem, for she was still the unwilling custodian of -the white-elephant fortune in bills. Mrs. Liggs had not arrived, nor -had she answered Lemuel’s telegram for that matter. Dot could not -imagine what had happened to their little old friend, on whom she -depended to solve the problem for her. - -Three days after Lemuel had wired Mrs. Liggs, asking her to come to -San Francisco, they had given up hope of hearing from her. -Considerably mystified, they had been finally driven into visiting -the manager of one of the big stores and confessing that Dot was -going to attend a select seminary and needed a complete wardrobe. As -a result, Dot was now the proud possessor of as dainty and chic a -collection of gowns, expensive lingerie, hats and shoes, as had been -displayed in Longwell’s in more than a decade. - -However, Mrs. Liggs’ strange absence and silence remained a mystery; -and, as a consequence, the twenty thousand dollars remained wrapped -in the old silk shawl in Dot’s room, which she shared with the -daughter of a shipbuilder of Portland, Oregon. Yet, let it not be -assumed that Dot was for one moment unmindful of the ultimate -disposition of this money. On the contrary, she was determined that -it should eventually find its way back to its rightful owners. The -thing is, that her first nervousness had left her. Constant -reflection on a subject of fearful moment in due time robs that -subject of its alarms. - -She now calmly reasoned that since Mrs. Liggs had failed her she -would simply abide the coming of that hour when she could get up -sufficient courage to write to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad -Company, telling them she had Billy Gee’s loot and explaining the -entire situation in such a way as to protect herself from the -possibility of subsequent newspaper notoriety. This, she made up her -mind to do; and then suddenly, a day or two after, she remembered -with a thrill of joy, Bob Warburton, her father’s friend. Why had -she not thought of Warburton before? He was the very man who could -and would return this ill-gotten treasure to its owners and in all -probability even go so far as to withhold her name in the case. - -It was late one afternoon when the happy thought struck her. She was -in her room and she immediately sat down and wrote out a telegram to -Warburton, asking him to come to San Francisco at once, as she had -something of the utmost importance to tell him. - -Then she ran downstairs and stole away across the garden to a -secluded arbor in the far corner of the seminary grounds. On a small -ledge beneath one of the old rustic benches, among a mass of other -clandestine correspondence, she placed the message and the money for -the coachman—a sympathetic individual who, because of the handsome -tips he enjoyed from his precluded side line, was a stanch advocate -of drastic academic rules against letter writing. - -Dot, having taken the first definite step to rid herself of the -responsibility which had weighed her down since the morning she had -opened her bureau drawer and discovered the prodigality of Billy -Gee’s gratitude, hurried back through the garden. As she reached a -point where she could command a view of the walk leading from the -street to the seminary’s front door, she came to an abrupt halt. -Slowly approaching along the walk came a familiar figure, that of a -little old woman, dressed in a neat, correct street dress. One -glance, and the girl gave a glad cry. It was Mrs. Liggs! Shrilling -her name, Dot raced toward her. - -“Mrs. Liggs! Mrs. Liggs! Where have you been? We waited so long. We -didn’t know what—— You darling!” she cried. She caught the frail -form in her strong young arms and hugged and kissed her until the -pale-blue eyes glistened with joy. - -Locked in each other’s arms they stood on the seminary’s steps for -some minutes talking in a fury of happy excitement. It developed -that Mrs. Liggs had come to the city a few days after she had -received Lemuel’s telegram. She had not been able to meet them as -she had intended because of a sudden change of plans, which had -required her presence in the southern part of the State prior to -journeying north. Inquiry at the Golden West Hotel on her arrival -elicited the information that Dot’s trunks had been checked out to -Longwell’s Seminary, but Mrs. Liggs had postponed her visit until -she got settled in a quiet place, away from the nerve-racking noise -of the city’s business district. She told the girl all this in a -hesitant, wistful voice, much as if she were relating something that -was not entirely to her liking. - -Presently, Dot led the way inside and thence into one of the gloomy -parlors, grim in its austere furnishings, high ceiling and -scrupulous cleanliness. On one of the walls, in a plain black -mahogany frame, the stern visage of one of the Longwell sisters -glared icily down on them. Authorization to conduct the Longwell -Seminary as an educational institution was strikingly displayed in a -gold-bordered parchment, bearing the seal of the State of -California, and a hundred words of beautiful handwriting painfully -difficult to decipher under the most favorable conditions. - -As they were about to seat themselves a maid attired in severe black -made her noiseless appearance at the door and, with a cautious -glance over her shoulder, motioned hurriedly to Dot. - -“Something terrible has happened, Miss Huntington,” she whispered, -when the girl joined her in the hall. “Miss Jessie Longwell phoned -the trustees, and they’re holding a meeting in the office now, -about——” She broke off, her eyes seeking the floor. - -“Go on, Mary! They’re holding a meeting, you say, and it’s over me, -isn’t it?” said Dot quietly. - -The maid nodded. “They’re trying to decide whether to expel you or -not.” - -“Expel me? Why—why, you surely must be mistaken. I can’t imagine——” - -“It’s something that’s in the afternoon papers. I haven’t been able -to see it. I heard them talking about it. Miss Longwell’s taken all -of them and given strict orders for us not to allow any more in the -seminary until further notice from her.” - -Bewilderment, then anxiety struggled in Dot’s face. Her thoughts -flashed to her father. - -“Are you sure, Mary? Did you hear what it was over? Was anything -said?” she asked, trusting herself to speak finally. - -“I only heard them mention your name, Miss Huntington, and—and -something about disgrace,” said the maid. “I tried to catch what -they accused you of, but Miss Longwell closed the door. I’m so -sorry—if there’s any trouble.” - -Dot thanked her and went back to Mrs. Liggs. The old lady studied -her narrowly as she resumed her seat. - -“It’s bad news, ain’t it, Dot? I can see it in your face, so don’t -story to me, deary. And it’s about your father and—and Billy Gee, -ain’t it?” She drew up her chair as she spoke, and took the girl’s -hand affectionately in her own. - -Dot told her what the maid had said, and Mrs. Liggs nodded -comprehendingly. - -“Well, that’s what it is—an account of Billy Gee and your dad, -sweetheart,” she said. “The papers are full of it, and that’s why I -come to-day to see you. I wanted you to know the truth.” - -“But—but what has happened?” cried Dot, pale and starting to -tremble. - -“Nothing, honey, and that’s the worst of it. If it was true I -wouldn’t care, ’cos it couldn’t be helped. It’s just a whole lot of -rot that them reporters glory to write about.” - -Thereupon, she gave the girl the details of a sensational first-page -story telling of Billy Gee’s sudden reappearance at the Huntington -ranch, after the authorities of San Buenaventura County had -conclusively stated that he had perished on the desert following his -escape from Warburton; how he had made away in the railroad -detective’s automobile, and an account of Lemuel’s arrest on -suspicion of having appropriated the stolen funds of the Mohave & -Southwestern Railroad Company, and his subsequent release pending -further investigation, as a result of the note written by the outlaw -declaring that he had dug up and taken with him the -twenty-thousand-dollar cache. - -Dot listened attentively throughout that simple recital, an odd -admiration she could not subdue dancing in her eyes at this latest -of Billy Gee’s reckless exploits. Even while her little old friend -was speaking, she understood the reason for this daring bandit’s -action; her father had been suspected of the theft, and Billy Gee -had lied to save him. Moreover, Billy Gee had lied to make wholly -secure his twenty-thousand-dollar gift to her! Her heart beat fast; -she could hear it pounding in her ears. Billy Gee had not forgotten, -was not forgetting her. He was magnificent, romantically magnificent -in his outlawry. - -“And no matter how I’ve hated your dad, Dot, I know he never took -that money,” resumed Mrs. Liggs, after a short pause. “He’s honest -and wouldn’t do such a thing.” - -“You’ve hated dad?” echoed the girl, staring incredulously at the -bowed gray head. - -She thought there was something infinitely pathetic in the -appearance of that small figure before her, the droop of its narrow -shoulders, the forlornness of its pose. This was not the sprightly, -merry, little storekeeper she had known these last three years in -far-off Geerusalem. - -“I did, yes. But that’s all passed now. I’ve been happy to -forget—and forgive, Dot.” - -“Why, Mother Liggs! I won’t believe it. You and father have always -been such good friends.” - -The older woman nodded uncertainly at the carpet. She did not answer -at once. The faint flush of excitement, which her cheeks had worn -until now, vanished. Her gentle face was white and drawn; her lips -were twitching. - -“I’ve—I’ve come to tell you something, honey—not because I want to, -but because he asked me to. I’m—I’m Billy Gee’s mother, Dot.” Her -whisper, broken, scarcely audible, penetrated to the farthest recess -of that cold, silent room. - -She turned brimming eyes to the girl now, and there was an appeal in -them that could not be misunderstood—a dumb, fearful eagerness, a -hungry waiting for a word, a touch, a smile; a look like that of -some wretched penitent craving mercy. A painful, tragic pause -ensued. - -“You’re _his_ mother?” repeated Dot slowly at last. She gazed almost -in ludicrous unbelief at the withered, wistful, old countenance -raised to hers. Then suddenly an ineffable tenderness suffused the -girl’s face, poured from her eyes. She fell on her knees beside Mrs. -Liggs and gathered her close in her arms. “You’re a wonderful little -mother, and I love you better for being _his_ mother—because I know -it,” she breathed, half sobbing, and kissed the aged cheeks again -and again, and fondled the thin, tired hands against her bosom. - -For the next quarter of an hour Mrs. Liggs opened her heart, laid it -bare of its secrets—for the first time since the criminal career of -her only child, Jerome, had darkened the future for her and filled -her life with fears and heartaches. Weeping softly, she told that -tragic story, from that awful morning in Marysville, three years -before, when the police came to the Liggs home searching for -Jerome—charged by City Treasurer Gene Miles with embezzlement of -city funds—up to the day of his capture by Lemuel Huntington. - -As any mother would, she tried to excuse her wayward boy for -everything he had subsequently done in defiance of law, by pointing -out that the criminal authorities had hounded him, made him a social -outcast, thereby forcing him to pursue his desperate calling as a -means of living. Nor was she wholly wrong in her accusation, as any -ex-convict will straightway affirm. A penitentiary record—though -Billy Gee had never known the interior of a prison cell—is a full -brother to guilt forever after, in the eyes of the law’s -bloodhounds. - -Society seems to forget that the man who pays the debt it imposes on -him regains, by every moral principle, his standing among the ranks -of righteous humankind. Instead, breaking faith with the very -justice it presumes to mete out, it claps the stigma of ignominy on -the wrongdoer and never removes it; once a jailbird, always a -jailbird, is the tenor of its smug opinion, and being itself -ruthless in the exercise of its self-bestowed powers, it gives to -men of the Coates and Tyler type authority to apprehend -law-breakers. Incompetency and political patronage rule the system -of law enforcement, making it a stupid, clumsy institution whose -methods of operation serve rather to increase than decrease the -commission of crime. - -Mrs. Liggs was still speaking when a sharp rap sounded on the parlor -door. It was the maid, coming to inform Dot that Miss Jessie -Longwell, president of the seminary, wished to speak with her in the -office. The girl thought for a moment; then, insisting that her -little old friend accompany her, she escorted Mrs. Liggs out of the -room and down the spacious hall to another apartment, fitted with -correct businesslike furnishings, including a large flat-top oak -desk before which sat the head of the school. - -Miss Longwell was, at a glance, a most unattractive specimen of -middle-aged person, haughty, self-contained, precision itself, and -thin as a lath. She sat rigid as a steel spring in her straight-back -chair, and let her stony, gimlet eyes back of their immense -shell-rimmed glasses, rest icily on Dot; then she focused them -inquiringly on Mrs. Liggs. - -“Miss Huntington,” she began, in a quick, crisp voice, “I said, I -believe, that I wished to speak with you privately.” - -“This is Mrs. Liggs, Miss Longwell, a very dear friend of mine,” -returned Dot, by way of explanation, at the same time going through -the formalities of introduction. “Whatever must be said may be done -so in her presence. I think I know the nature of the interview,” she -added. - -Miss Longwell’s lips tightened, then she got up very decidedly and -closed the door. On her way back to her desk she halted before Dot. - -“I regret very much, Miss Huntington,” she said, speaking in slow -impressive tones, “that an unfortunate condition has arisen which -makes it quite impossible for you to continue as a student of -Longwell Seminary. Indeed, it distresses me greatly to have to make -this fact known to you. Your conduct has been most exemplary in the -short time you have been here, and as to your application and -progress in the several lines of study you have taken up, you have -exceeded our fullest expectations. But——” - -“What is this condition you just mentioned, Miss Longwell?” broke in -Dot. - -“Why—er—it concerns your father. Now, while I have not the slightest -doubt that the—er—thing is simply a newspaper canard, still the -long-standing reputation of Longwell’s Seminary as an institution of -high ideals cannot be placed in jeopardy under any circumstances. -Why, your father, Miss Huntington, I am very grieved to state is -accused of possible complicity in a—in a theft.” - -Dot flushed angrily. The manner of the speaker as she pronounced the -word was insulting, she thought. - -“But you have met my father, Miss Longwell. Do you absolutely think -he’s that kind of man?” she asked quietly. - -“To be frank with you, I don’t. Still, as you must certainly -realize, that does not alter the case. The mere accusation is so -serious as to cause unfavorable comment, if not cast discredit on -this institution, did we allow you to remain a member of our student -body. This was the unanimous verdict of our board of trustees at a -meeting which just now adjourned. Acting under its instruction, I am -wiring your father. You will get your effects together, preparatory -to leaving. I would add that I am extremely sorry, Miss -Huntington——” - -“I’m not!” interrupted Dot suddenly. She drew her slim figure up -with queenly defiance, her eyes glittering dangerously. “And what is -more, Miss Longwell, I do not want your sympathy. I am glad that I -have at least found out just how really elevating a school of this -kind is. You pride yourselves on building up character. You help -ruin reputations as readily, I notice. By sending me home, you -advertise to the world that Lemuel Huntington is a thief, that I, -his daughter, am the child of a thief—a person too low to attend so -pure and undefiled an institution as——” - -“Oh, deary, you mustn’t say such awful things!” burst out Mrs. Liggs -nervously. - -“Miss Huntington, the interview is over,” snapped the preceptress, a -flush mantling her prominent high cheek bones. “You will retire to -your room, where you will await my orders.” - -“Your orders?” cried Dot. “Madam, I’m serving notice on you that I’m -leaving your spotless institution just as soon as I can pack my -belongings! And you will please return me the balance of my tuition -fee before I go.” - -Reluctantly she allowed pacifying little Mrs. Liggs to lead her from -the room and back into the parlor. Burning with shame and -indignation, she paced the floor for some minutes, while the older -woman talked, counseling her against the reënactment of the scene in -the office when she applied to Miss Longwell for her money. -Presently, they had arranged it between them that Dot was to stop -with her friend until word could be got to Lemuel. Within the hour, -they were descending the front steps, the tuition fee in Dot’s -purse, the sympathetic maid instructed to send the girl’s baggage to -Mrs. Liggs’ home. - -As they took their seats in a taxi, and Dot kissed sprightly fingers -at Longwell’s Seminary, another machine came to a stop on the -opposite side of the street. The lone passenger, on the point of -getting out, stopped and stared after the other cab now whirling -rapidly away. It was Lex Sangerly. He had been told at the Golden -West Hotel that Lemuel had departed for Geerusalem, after presumably -having entered his daughter in Longwell Seminary. Whereupon, Lex had -decided to visit the girl, introduce himself through the medium of -Mrs. Liggs’ friendship, and question her in the hope that she might -throw some light on the mysterious disappearance of the contents of -Billy Gee’s saddlebags. - -From this it may be deduced that Lex had not read the sensational -newspaper story that day, incriminating Lemuel Huntington in the -affair. Just now, he gazed in growing amazement at the taxi speeding -down the street. - -“By George! If that isn’t Mrs. Liggs, I’ll——” he burst out and ended -by shouting hurried instructions to the chauffeur. The next moment -he had started in pursuit of the cab. - - -CHAPTER XIII—SINISTER FOREBODINGS - -Mrs. Agatha Liggs occupied a neat cozy four-room cottage in the -residential section of San Francisco, known as Richmond District. A -well-kept garden, colorful with blossoming plants, flanked and -fronted it; and there was a Cherokee rose which spread its wild -luxuriant arms across the length of the porch and festooned it thick -with its pink, floppy flowers during the early spring. Six blocks -away, across a field of lupins, the waves of the blue Pacific lapped -a narrow stretch of beach under the shadow of crumbling shale -cliffs. The Presidio fortifications loomed here and there along the -heights, frowning, formidable piles of concrete out of which peeped -the grim noses of long-range guns turned seaward, reminding one of -dogs of war everlastingly on the alert for the first scent of -danger. - -It was a mile or more from the Longwell Seminary to Mrs. Liggs’ -home, and on the way there, Billy Gee’s mother found time to finish -telling Dot her story, which the maid had interrupted when she came -to summon the girl before the preceptress. This had to do -principally with the fact that the bandit, after his escape, had -written her a letter which she had received the same day Lemuel’s -telegram reached her. He told her where he was in hiding and, -following a night of harrowing thought—fearful that he might risk a -trip to Geerusalem to see her, and be captured—she had decided to -dispose of her dry-goods store and move away from Soapweed Plains. -Learning that Dot was to enter school in San Francisco, and having -no definite plans as to where to establish her residence, she had -chosen the metropolis, happy in the knowledge, she said, that she -would be near her friend whom she would see often, besides feeling -certain that her outlaw son could make his home with her, secure in -the crowded confines of a great city, and abandon forever his -lawless calling. - -Selling her store, she had boarded a train and gone south with -Tinnemaha Pete, and under the guidance of the old desert prospector, -had found Billy Gee’s hiding place—a lonely desert cave, in a -lonelier cañon of the Calico Range. But the outlaw was absent, and -though they waited several days for him, until the provisions they -had brought along were gone, he did not return. At last, filled with -misgivings, she had come away at the instance of Tinnemaha Pete who, -after accompanying her to the nearest settlement, went back to -acquaint her son with her plans when he came. Arriving in the city, -she had rented the cottage and written Billy Gee, giving her new -address, and had received a long letter from him the day before. - -“And it’s the blessedest letter I ever got from him, Dot,” she -concluded, her old eyes swimming. “I think he’s—I think he’s quit -the awful life. I’m praying God every, every night, to give him -strength.” - -Dot made no reply. Her arm stole around the other, and she gazed -ahead, an odd light in her eyes. - -The taxi drew up to the cottage, and they got out. Mrs. Liggs led -the way along the narrow walk, pausing every few steps to point out -to the girl the glories of the garden. As they were about to go in -the house, Lex Sangerly’s machine arrived. He came bounding through -the gate, shouting out a merry greeting to Mrs. Liggs. - -“You should know better than try to sneak away from me, Mother -Liggs,” he cried, as he halted before her, wringing her hands and -laughing at her bewilderment. “That was a shameless way to treat a -fellow—not even tell him you were selling out. I absolutely demand -an apology—and a pumpkin pie. I followed you all the way from the -seminary.” - -“Goodness me, Lex, what in the world—— It was all so sudden, Lex, -that I——” she began, with a tremulous pathetic smile. “You’ve got to -forgive me. Sometimes things don’t go just right for folks, and they -act without thinking. This is Mr. Sangerly, Dot. And you’ve heard me -speak of Miss Huntington, Lex.” - -“Indeed, yes,” he smiled pleasantly. “Mrs. Liggs has said some very -flattering things about you, Miss Huntington. I am always delighted -to meet a good friend of hers.” - -Here Mrs. Liggs briefly explained to Dot that the Sangerlys had once -been neighbors of hers in San José and gave a number of humorous -instances to prove Lex’s shocking capacity for pumpkin pie. -Laughing, they entered the cottage and, while the visitor waited in -the parlor, the women went through the prosaic process of removing -their street clothes and donning house dresses. A little later, Mrs. -Liggs bustled off for the kitchen—for they must have a cup of her -favorite tea, she merrily announced—and Dot joined Lex. - -They sat opposite each other and, as they talked, the man admitted -to himself that this girl, inhabitant of the desert though she was, -surpassed in many respects the young women with whom he was -acquainted in such cultured California centers as Pasadena and -Burlingame. There was a native refinement about her, a charming -grace of movement—little subtle characteristics of elegance—that -caused him to marvel and to conclude that she must have inherited -them from her mother, since her father certainly lacked them. But -what particularly impressed him was the fresh, striking beauty of -her, the spirit and frankness and deep strain of sympathy in her -face, and that elusive something that marked her at a glance a -daughter of the waste lands. - -They talked on. Yes, he had heard she was attending Longwell -Seminary, and she had been informed that his father was Western -manager of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad. They both liked -Geerusalem. She told him a number of things about herself, chiefly -how she loved to read and how greatly she wanted to write -stories—gripping stories of adventure. He sat and listened to her -and confidentially affirmed to himself that here was a girl who -would have fitted into his life as perhaps no other would—not even -his petite, brown-eyed fiancée, daughter of the steamship company’s -president whose guest he was during his stay in San Francisco. - -Doubtless it was this strong appeal which Dot’s personality had for -him that made it quite impossible for him to explain his mission to -her. He shied at opening the subject, and as for deliberately -cross-examining her, he felt that it was out of the question. She -was too obviously not the type of girl to have anything to do with -an illegal act of any kind; of that he was assured. Rather, he -believed, she was the sort who would have reported to Warburton at -the time whatever suspicions she might have had regarding Billy -Gee’s movements. However, he presently contrived to turn the -conversation to the outlaw’s escape and he noted a new interest -flash up in her eyes, as he did so. It puzzled him. - -“Perhaps, I’m biased, Miss Huntington, because of my association -with the M. & S., but nothing would make me happier than to hear -that he was lodged in a San Quentin dungeon for life, or shot down -by a posse,” he replied slowly, in answer to her questions as to his -opinion of the outlaw’s exploits. “Rather brutal, isn’t it?” - -“Altogether brutal, Mr. Sangerly,” she said frankly. “But then, I’m -also biased. You see, I owe him considerable, in a way, and won’t -allow myself to forget it.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “If my -father had not captured him and gotten the reward, I wouldn’t be in -San Francisco to-day, with the opportunity of an education before -me—the chance of seeing something outside of Soapweed Plains and -Geerusalem all my life. I am candid in telling you this. It’s true.” -Her expression changed. “Sometimes the thought sickens me. It’s like -blood money.” - -He broke into a hearty laugh. “Nonsense, Miss Huntington! Why, if we -were to stop and consider the history of the dollar—the grief, -misery, degradation, filth that each almighty dollar has been the -means of creating—we’d be too nauseated to look at it, to say -nothing of buying our daily bread with it and dropping it in the -collection plates!” - -“There may be a lot in that, but in my case the evidence is right -before me—staring me out of countenance. To me, it’s just like -selling a soul. And because I feel that way about it, I know I’m -deeply indebted to Billy Gee——” - -“Bosh!” cried Lex. “He’s a law-breaker—a dangerous desperado. He -robs men, seizes other men’s belongings, appropriates to himself -what isn’t his, threatens men’s lives to do it. Miss Huntington, -anybody who captures such an animal, who rids the world of such an -animal, deserves far more than your father received from the M. & -S.” He had spoken brusquely, animated by a conscientious detestation -of crime and criminals in any form. She was watching him, studying -him curiously. “The only regret I have,” he added, “is that he had -to die. I would rather see such a man wearing out his soul in -prison.” - -“He’s dead, did you say? Why, father wrote me that Mr. Warburton was -of the opinion that——” A faint smile hovered about her lips, a -tantalizing smile. - -“Bob Warburton is a person of foresight; usually he knows what he’s -talking about. But in this case—— Why, if Billy Gee were alive, Miss -Huntington, we would have heard from him long ago. He was one of -those ugly customers who have a mania for seeing their names in -print. Isn’t it significant that our trains have not been robbed—not -even molested—since the day of his capture? Billy Gee was a -bred-in-the-bone crook, Miss Huntington, the type that never -reforms. He perished on the desert, and I’m saying that with all due -respect to the opinion of our good friend, Warburton.” - -Dot did not reply. Her mind went back to the night she had parted -with Billy Gee in the dark hayloft, the moon shining through the -hole under the eaves, showing him standing knee-deep in the loose -hay, reflecting on the bloody bandage around his head. She heard his -voice again, saying: - -“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington—some time. An’—an’ I -hope you’ll be proud, like you jest said.” It was the sound of his -voice, the way he had spoken those words, that remained ever vivid -in her memory. To-day, she had met the mother of Billy Gee! - -At this juncture Mrs. Liggs entered the parlor to announce that -luncheon was ready. They seated themselves at the table in the cool -little dining room, and their hostess poured the tea and led the -conversation, which ran the gamut from reminiscences of bygone days -in San José to a series of interesting episodes in and around -Geerusalem. But she steered carefully clear of any mention of -lawlessness, being fearful of bringing the name of her bandit son -into the discussion and hearing Lex’s criticism of him—the chum he -believed dead. - -“You men folks think us women don’t know anything about business,” -she laughed gayly. “But there’s some of us do, Lex, and I’m one of -them. Of course, you’ll say that when it comes to selling overalls -and socks and cotton shirts I’m fine, but that I ain’t got any idea -about big business—real big business. Now, won’t you?” - -The talk had turned to a speculation of Geerusalem’s future, Lex -taking issue with Mrs. Ligg’s statement that as a gold-producer it -would surpass both the Nevada camps of Goldfield and Tonopah. - -“No, I wouldn’t say that, Mother Liggs,” he replied. “Honestly, I -believe you have keen foresight. I’d rather take your opinion than -that of many mining engineers I know. But it really seems an -exaggeration to say that——” - -“I’m agreeing with you, Mother Liggs,” broke in Dot -enthusiastically, and added in serious tones: “Geerusalem, Mr. -Sangerly, is only in its infancy, as you know, and yet, look at its -mines! They’re enormously rich, and new prospects are being -uncovered right along. The only thing that’s keeping it back is the -unscrupulous type of men that have control—rule it. Have you heard -of the terrible power they wield—the awful acts they commit?” - -Lex nodded, his mind going back to his encounter with Boss Quintell -that evening before Mrs. Liggs’ dry-goods store, the scene in the -street when Quintell’s henchmen rallied, surrounded him, glowering -and menacing, at the sound of their master’s voice. - -“I haven’t the slightest doubt but that Geerusalem has a flattering -future,” he admitted presently. “As a matter of truth, it is so -certain of being a permanent camp that the M. & S. is about to begin -surveying for a spur track into it, from the Mirage station. That -goes to prove the company’s confidence in it. And I may say, Miss -Huntington, that your father’s ranch, from what I’m able to learn, -is quite likely to be on the right of way.” - -A glad cry broke from Dot. “Oh, won’t that be wonderful! Just -imagine, Mother Liggs, sitting on the front porch, watching the -trains go by!” - -“In my opinion, it will increase the value of the property to an -appreciable degree,” said Lex. “I’ve been wondering why your father -hasn’t gone in for cattle raising——” - -He ceased speaking. An audible little gasp had escaped Mrs. Liggs. -He looked at her and saw that her pale-blue eyes were fixed on him, -wide with excitement and dismay. - -“Good heavens!” she burst out. “It just come to me who told me about -that branch line, Lex. There’s a scheme on to stop it. They’re going -to keep it out of Geerusalem if they got to kill and murder to do -it.” - -A short silence fell. Lex regarded her curiously a moment before he -spoke. - -“I think you must be mistaken, Mother Liggs,” he said finally. “I -don’t think any one would oppose a spur into Geerusalem. It would -help make the camp. Who do you mean by _they_?” - -“Jule Quintell and his crowd. Listen! About a month ago, George -Harrison—he’s Quintell’s private secretary—came into my store to buy -something. I’ve known him ever since he arrived in camp; that’s -about two years. He’d been drinking this afternoon. We got talking, -and I asked him if there was anything new—sociablelike, you know. -And he said they’d been tipped off that a railroad company was -figuring on building a track into camp from the main line. - -“I told him I thought it’d be just the thing we needed. He -laughed—oh, so nasty!—and leaned over the counter and said: ‘Mrs. -Liggs, railroads generally get their own way, but they won’t in this -neck of the woods. We’re going to draw a line in the sand and tell -them they’ll go that far and no further.’ ‘You sure ain’t going to -stop them, Mr. Harrison?’ I asked. ‘We’re going to make them come to -us. And if they try their strong-arm tactics we’ll give them all -they’re looking for. If it’s a case of fight we’ll make Soapweed -Plains look like a slaughterhouse.’ I seen that he’d been drinking -considerable and I figured he might he bragging, and I never thought -nothing more about it till just now when you mentioned the spur -track.” - -Lex lit a cigarette and gave her a smile. “I think you’ll find he -was doing that very thing, Mother Liggs—bragging. Admitting that -this fellow Quintell is a power in Geerusalem and that his word is -law—why, if he so much as voiced an objection to so important a -factor to the camp’s progress, as a railroad, his most trusted -followers would turn against him. Men nowadays appreciate the value -of transportation facilities. They may buck the railroad companies -on every issue and all that sort of thing, but they can’t get along -without trains and they know it. Quintell wouldn’t dare put a -single, solitary obstacle in the way of a spur track. On the -contrary, he’ll peel off his coat and help us.” - -“Don’t you be too sure about that,” said Mrs. Liggs, with a warning -shake of her head. “You don’t know him, Lex. Old Nick ain’t any -trickier than he is, and when it comes to being real dirty and cruel -and murderous, he’s worse than the devil and all his fiends. He just -plays with men—like a cat does with a mouse. Any man that crosses -him is as good as gone. If Quintell can’t crush him to the wall, -ruin him, run him out of camp, he has his throat cut; the buzzards -finish him. And it’s all done quietly. There’s no proof or nothing. -And all the time it’s getting stronger and stronger, the Quintell -machine is working day and night, growing bolder, reaching out here -and there and grabbing mining property, deliberately stealing it. -I’ve heard that a lot of good men have been forced to join the -gangsters, ’cos they’re afraid if they don’t stand in, they’ll lose -their mines—if they don’t turn up missing themselves, some morning.” - -Lex gave a short laugh. “I remember you warned me that evening I met -him in front of your store,” he said easily; “and I’m going to -repeat what I told you. It’s this: He’ll meet the wrong man—at the -right time, Mother Liggs. But tell me, his power lies in the slum -element of the camp only, doesn’t it?” - -“You see that!” she cried triumphantly. “You ain’t got the least -idea how he works, how cunning he is. No, it doesn’t! There’s mining -engineers, brokers, and assayers—influential rascals—in his clique. -They’re the brains of the gang. The slum element, as you call it, -are just the tools and they do what they’re told—all the -claim-jumping and fighting and killing. Quintell, as anybody’ll tell -you, is the boss. They control the constable and the courts, and no -matter what one of the gang does, he ain’t even arrested. I tell -you, Lex, he’s dangerous, as deadly as sin. He’s always put me in -mind of a big, horrible, poisonous spider that gets fat killing -little bugs and eating them.” - -“Well, there’s one satisfaction, Mother Liggs,” he replied, as he -reached over and patted her hand: “The career of a bad man is -usually short. He’s like a mosquito—he stings one time too many. -There was Billy Gee, for example. Never was there a more -contemptible scoundrel ever lived than that miserable renegade——” - -“Pardon me for interrupting you, Mr. Sangerly, but are you in the -mood for a surprise?” - -It was Dot who spoke. While Mrs. Liggs and Lex were talking she had -quietly left the table and gone into the bedroom. She stood now just -inside the door, her face sightly flushed, her eyes shining with an -odd light. In her hand, she held the loot of the M. & S., wrapped in -her mother’s old silk shawl. Mrs. Liggs, her snowy head resting on -her hand, gazed listlessly into her plate. - -“A surprise is always in order, Miss Huntington,” laughed Lex. -“Providing, of course, it is a pleasant one.” - -“I’m going to leave you to judge whether this one is or not,” said -Dot. - -She went over to his side of the table, cleared away the dishes, and -placed the neatly-bound sheaf of bills before him. - -A dramatic silence fell. He looked, then stared in blank -astonishment at the green and yellow pile for a long moment. Dot was -watching him with dancing eyes. As for Mrs. Liggs, her face was a -study in stark bewilderment. - -“What—what’s this? You can’t really mean—is it possible, Miss -Huntington, that——” stammered Lex, and stopped. - -“Dot, darling!” burst like a sob from Mrs. Liggs’ parted lips. - -“Yes, Mr. Sangerly, those are the actual bills—the exact amount—that -your company lost, twenty thousand dollars,” said Dot in clear, -ringing tones. “I am returning it to you for Billy Gee. I have one -request to make, and that is that you exonerate my father from the -ridiculous charge your detectives have placed against him. If there -has been an accomplice in this matter it is I.” She paused, then -resumed with a smile: “I’ll relate the facts to you and let you -decide for yourself. First, however, in order that you may not labor -under a misapprehension—Billy Gee is alive.” - - -CHAPTER XIV—AN EPISODE IN THE HILLS - -It seldom happens that a sheriff, or any peace officer for that -matter, ever regains the confidence of the public, much less his -popularity, once he loses a prisoner of such supposed badness as was -Billy Gee. Somehow, it is difficult for the voters to believe that a -really efficient official may be caught unawares and outwitted by a -criminal, particularly if that criminal is unarmed and handcuffed -into the bargain. So the conscientious wielder of the franchise goes -to the polls, and on the strength of his theory that a sworn servant -of the people should be invincible and superior to mistake and -oversight, very gravely ousts the incumbent candidate in favor of -the untried timber on the ballot. - -The voters of San Buenaventura County, California, were of another -sort, however. Sheriff Bob Warburton had proved up to their ideals -for two terms—even if he hadn’t been able to hold onto the -will-o’-the-wisp bandit of the Mohave. He was sincere, always on the -job, a good fellow, dependable. That he had slipped once, should not -condemn him, asserted the electorate. What man does not slip once? - -Regardless of the fact, then, that Warburton had resigned his office -and that his political enemies made a great to-do about the Billy -Gee incident, the people went to the polls strong for Warburton and -reinstated him to office by an avalanche vote. And, as if to confirm -their trust in him, on the very day that he resumed his gold star he -issued a statement to the newspapers in which he vowed to capture -Billy Gee and get him the maximum sentence under the -law—imprisonment for life. - -It was a week after election. During that week Warburton received -Dot’s telegram requesting him to come to San Francisco. On the day -following its receipt, while he debated whether he should make the -trip or wire her for particulars, he got an unexpected message from -Lex Sangerly, stating in so many words that the M. & S. money had -been recovered and urging that information be kept secret for the -time being. - -Warburton puzzled over the matter for hours. He began to ask himself -if it were not just possible that there existed a clandestine love -affair between Dot and Billy Gee. Because of his intimate knowledge -of Lex’s movements in the case, Warburton was certain that Sangerly -had gone to San Francisco to interview the girl and had found her in -possession of the outlaw’s loot. This, he reasoned, would explain -her telegram that she had something of importance to tell him. Love -alone could have moved Billy Gee to part with twenty thousand -dollars, was the sheriff’s firm conviction. - -“’Twouldn’t be the first good woman fell for a scalawag,” he -muttered grimly, as he holstered his six-shooters and picked up his -rifle. - -It was at that season of the year when the desert region of southern -California was beginning to feel the atmospheric influences caused -by the early sprinkle of rain descending on the timbered highlands -to the north—the violent gustiness of the wind whipping the sand -into great clouds, the strange sultriness of the nights, the -blood-red sunsets. - -Unknown to any member of his office, except his second in command, -Undersheriff Hodgson, Warburton stole out of the county seat one -evening on a still hunt of weeks, and there was in his heart the -kind of determination that stops at nothing to achieve its purpose. - -Aside from his desire to merit the faith of the people, there was a -personal angle which made his meeting with the bandit a thing of -vital moment. Any one familiar with the man-hunting game will tell -you that if there is one thing an officer of the law never forgets, -it is a bodily injury received at the hands of a prisoner; also, -that he never quite forgives himself for losing a prisoner. Either -is, loosely speaking, a professional disgrace, but it is more than -that. An officer appreciates only too well that he is the custodian -of the law, that his voice is the voice of the commonwealth, that -his body is as sacred as it is possible for a human body to be -sacred. Sheriff Warburton cherished this belief with pride. Had -Billy Gee held him up at the point of a gun and stripped him of his -valuables, the act would have been more or less forgivable alongside -of striking the _sheriff_ down, shackling the _sheriff_ with the -_sheriff’s_ handcuffs, and making his escape. - -The memory of that hurt had burned itself into Warburton’s brain -like some corroding acid. It permeated his being with the deadliness -of a vicious poison. His determination to capture Billy Gee came to -be a mania with him, a mania similar in intensity to that which had -gripped Lemuel Huntington to see Dot educated before he died. - -To-day, Sheriff Warburton was out to “get” Billy Gee—not Billy Gee -dead, but Billy Gee alive. He wanted to bring the outlaw into the -county seat of San Buenaventura, so that the people might see that -he had lived up to their expectations as a sheriff, to vindicate his -honor, the pride he felt in himself and his position. Anybody could -sneak up behind a desperado and shoot him down, but few had grit -enough to confront that desperado and take him alive. Warburton was -going to herd Billy Gee into the county seat alive or perish in the -attempt. So he swore to himself at the time. - -A-straddle of a mule, driving a pack burro before him, went the grim -sheriff of San Buenaventura County, looking for all the world like a -prospector in his patched-up overalls, old gray hat, and boots worn -down at the heels. A rough mat of whiskers which he had let flourish -untrimmed, disguised him against the possibility of recognition. - -Setting out from the town of Burbank, he steered a little north of -east and began a painstaking, systematic visit to every water hole, -spring, and tank on his slow, lonely journey across the north rim of -the Mohave Desert. There were few of these blessed oases—bright -green patches in that universe of gaunt desolation—and many hopeless -miles separated them. A man could never live in that near-hell -without water, and Warburton knew it. - -Toward the end of August—a few weeks after Billy Gee’s spectacular -flight from the Huntington ranch in the rented car—Warburton reached -Blue Mud Spring, a forlorn, seldom-visited trickle of water lost in -a topsy-turvy hill country some three miles west of Lemuel’s quarter -sections. Warburton camped there four whole wretched days, waiting; -he had found a rather significant clew, as he thought. - -Carved on the flat surface of a soft lime boulder, a few rods away -from the spring was the legend, “Dot H., Aug. 20, 1913.” It had been -done by a man, the work of an idle jackknife. The date was the one -on which Warburton had trailed Billy Gee to the Huntington ranch. It -was the one on which the bandit had met Dot, reasoned the sheriff. - -Inspection of the ground back of the boulder showed that the owner -of the jackknife had lain there for some time. The imprint of a -cartridge belt appeared in the dirt. A short distance up a near-by -shallow gulch, his horse had pawed a hole in the loose gravel during -intervals of hunger or impatience. - -On the evening of Warburton’s fourth day of solitary vigil, while he -was preparing his supper prospector fashion, the first person he had -seen since leaving the railroad hove in sight from around a bend in -the gulch. Warburton recognized him. It was none other than -Tinnemaha Pete. The old desert rat came pattering forward, driving -his two shying burros before him, urging them onward with wild, -falsetto cries. As he neared the muddy seepage of spring he shooed -them over to drink and toddled up to the sheriff. - -“Howdy, stranger!” he piped. “Kinder sultry weather, the last day or -so. Better’n that damn wind we bin havin’. You bin out in it? Lookit -my eyes!” He lifted his rheumy red lips at the other for inspection, -at the same time squinting craftily at him. But he couldn’t -penetrate the thick disguise of beard. - -“They sure are alkalied,” said the sheriff. “That’s tough. You’re -jest in time for a feed, friend. Sit in. Where’re you headed?” - -“I got claims ’crosst the hills yonder,” said Pete, waving his -skinny arm toward Geerusalem. “Sometimes I come here, sometimes I -hike to camp for water. Prospectin’?” - -“That’s my middle name. Lookin’ for rock with one eye an’ watchin’ -for that two-gun chap, Billy Gee, with the other. ’Tain’t pleasant, -let me tell you.” - -Tinnemaha Pete broke into a wild cackle. “A big walloper like you -skeart of a kid! Say, you’re a tenderfoot, ain’t you?” He leered -suddenly. “Yer hands’re soft. I jest seen the inside of one of ’em. -You can’t fool me, mister.” - -“I ain’t tryin’ to, dad,” grinned Warburton. “This here is my first -trip out for nigh on a year. I bin bartendin’ for McGregor, over to -Twenty-nine Palms. You know ‘Gold-tooth’ McGregor, the locoed -Scotchman, wears a clean boiled shirt every day, an’——” - -“Do I know that ol’ hoss thief? An’ you bin sellin’ booze for him? -Better man never lived’n—— D’ye happen to have what’s good for snake -bite?” he tittered. - -The sheriff dug a bottle out of his pack and passed it to him. -“’Tain’t as fine’s it might be, but it beats nothin’,” grimaced -Tinnemaha Pete, as he wiped his mouth. “An’ after you workin’ in -that rough-house joint of McGregor’s, you’re leery of Billy Gee! -Say, d’ye know that boy’s a genius! He’s a cat for lives an’ a fox -for tricks. He’s showed up ag’in. Ain’t you heerd? Lordy! Hell burn -my soul, if he ain’t writ another notice an’ stuck it up on the -blackboard of the _Searchlight_! Yes, he did—night afore last. -‘Warburton, I’m glad you’ve been reëlected sheriff. You’re the only -man for the job. I mean it.’ That’s what the notice said. Ain’t that -the tantalizin’ young devil?” Tinnemaha’s old eyes snapped proudly. - -Warburton’s teeth set under their cover of beard. He began -apportioning the fried rashers of bacon into two tin plates. - -“One of these days Mr. Sheriff’ll nab that galoot. Jest you watch,” -he replied slowly. “An’ when he does——” - -“If he does,” hooted the old man, “he’s a Jim Dandy. If it hadn’t -bin for Lem Huntington, the dirty——” - -He broke off in his eccentric way, trotted over to his pack animals, -and started throwing off their loads. Presently he had them hobbled -for the night and was back at the fire, squatting on the ground, his -heaping plate in his lap. They ate in silence, Warburton studying -his guest curiously, listening to him mumbling over his food. - -When the dishes had been washed and stacked away in a kyack, and the -two men had filled and lighted their pipes, Sheriff Warburton -returned to the subject uppermost in his mind. - -“Yessir, jest like you said, dad, if it hadn’t been for this rancher -Huntington gittin’ the drop on Billy Gee, the sheriff would ’a’ -never——” - -“Lem Huntington’s a ornery skipjack—a louse,” cried Tinnemaha Pete -in sudden fury. “He togs up like a tinhorn gambler an’ smokes -seegars now, an’ he’s bought a bunch of cows an’ is plantin’ a patch -in alfalfee. The cussed scrub! The ring-necked buzzard! I know, -stranger! They can’t fool old Tinnemaha Pete. Leetle Miss -Dot—there’s a angel for you, mister! She hid out Billy Gee that day, -an’ her dad nails him for the reeward. The t’rantula!” - -It had grown quite dark. The purple sky was brilliant with stars; a -warm, fragrant breeze purred down upon the night camp from over the -shattered crests of the rocky hills. In the leaping firelight, -Tinnemaha’s wizened features were distorted with senile rage. His -black, short-stemmed pipe trembled in his bony, clawlike hand. - -“You ain’t never met up with Billy Gee, eh?” he asked. “I did. Yes, -siree, I know him! They ain’t a finer boy no place, they ain’t. An’ -along comes this yaller snake, Lem Huntington, an’——” - -“How d’you know that Miss Huntington hid Billy Gee?” interrupted -Warburton casually. “You’re jest mebby guessin’ at it. You don’t -know for sure.” - -“Guessin’!” shrilled Tinnemaha Pete. “Guessin’, yore gran’mother. -Mrs. Liggs told me, an’ I figger she oughter know.” - -“Why?” - -“’Cos Lem Huntington—yes, he told her, that’s why. You wait till me -an’ him tangle. I found mineral on his ground an’—damn him, he’d -better not try no shenanigans with me! Not with ol’ Peter Boyd. Mark -me, stranger! I’ll cut him up. Sure’n scat, I’ll cut him up!” - -Puffing frantically at his wheezing cold pipe, he bobbed his gray -head at the fire, his puckered-up eyes flickering with a mad light. - -Warburton tossed a snarl of sagebrush on the coals. As the flames -leaped up, he glanced keenly at the queer little shriveled figure -across from him. After an interval, he said: - -“You reckillect the time las’ summer when Billy Gee nailed that -there other sign on the _Searchlight’s_ bulletin board, sayin’ he’d -bin huntin’ for Warburton for three year, an’——” Tinnemaha -brightened suddenly and gave a wild laugh. “Well, the sheriff told -me that he got a-hold of that paper notice,” continued Warburton -slowly. “It ’pears like it was a fancy sort o’ wrappin’ paper, an’ -Warburton he mosied ’round Geerusalem till he found the store that -used that pertickler kind. It was a dry-goods store, run by a -woman—Mrs. Agatha Liggs. - -“The sheriff didn’t do nothin’ about it then, figgerin’ that Billy -Gee mighta jest bought suthin’ there an’ used the paper to write on. -Now——” He paused. Trained to read men’s minds by their change of -facial expression, he had been quick to note the look of suspicion -which flashed across Tinnemaha’s wrinkled countenance. He finished -his recital with a wild guess. “What is Mrs. Liggs to Billy Gee—aunt -or mother?” - -The old man chuckled mirthlessly. He drew a brand out of the fire -and lit his pipe. “I ain’t ever goin’ to tell you, mister. I ain’t -got no way of knowin’. Mark ye! I don’t keep cases on other folks’ -business. Ol’ Tinnemaha Pete’s got too much of his own to ’tend to. -Am I right or wrong—what?” - -“Aunt or mother, dad?” smiled the sheriff indulgently. “Come on now, -you ain’t foolin’ me one bit. I’ve heerd for years as how Tinnemaha -Pete knows most everythin’ on the Mohave——” - -“The hell you say!” exploded the desertarian. He thrust his skinny -neck across the camp fire, and concentrated the gaze of his -red-rimmed eyes on Warburton’s whiskered face. “I don’t ever -reckillect seein’ you afore—not with that crop. Mebby I’d know you -shaved. What’s yore name?” - -“Jack Sangerly,” lied Warburton. - -“Spangaree? Seems to me I met—— Yessir! Agatha give me a knockdown -to a dude feller, tol’rable sort—had on ’bout five hunderd dollars -o’ sporty togs. That’s the name—Spangaree. But he was a ol’ friend -of the fambly, she said.” - -Warburton smiled. “That’s my brother, Lex, you met,” he said -blandly. “Lex’s bin edjicated in Frisco, an’ I reckon he knew her -there. Say, come to think of it, I b’lieve he did tell me she was -Billy Gee’s mother! Sure’s shootin’! It was over to the grading camp -where Billy held up the paymaster of the M. & S., some time after.” -He nodded gravely at the flames, but he was watching the other, -hawklike. - -Tinnemaha Pete gave vent to a paroxysm of hysterical laughter. -“’Tain’t like yore brother to lie to you, is it, Spangaree?” he -cackled, and resumed a vigorous puffing at his pipe. Thus for some -seconds, then he added abstractedly: “But Agatha she knowed the -whole Spangaree fambly, an’ said as how the dude feller I met an’ -Jerome was kids together.” - -“Jerome—Liggs!” gasped Warburton. In a twinkling, he remembered the -embezzlement of the Marysville city funds! - -Tinnemaha Pete did not hear him. The little old fellow’s faded blue -eyes, now snapping with a malicious fire, were riveted on him. - -“If you’re a deteckitive, stranger, God Almighty help ye!” he went -on. “Billy Gee hangs out here. Like as not, he’s out in the dark -yonder, takin’ it all in. Mark what I say! Close yore damn trap!” He -spoke in a heavy, cracked whisper, and Warburton cast a furtive eye -over the vicinity. - -It was black night beyond the small circle of firelight, the desert -hills tragically still, a subtle warning in Tinnemaha Pete’s voice -and manner. A short silence fell. The desertarian broke it with a -rough chuckle and shook his head at his pipe. - -“But he ain’t,” he ruminated, half to himself. “Lem Huntington knows -where he is. Gol ding his flea-bitten hide! I hope Billy cuts him -up, like I aim to. Jest let him try robbin’ ol’ Peter Boyd of them -Billy Geerusalem claims, an’ I’ll fetch him. I’ll turn a knife into -him. I’ll cut him up—chop him to pieces. Jest nacherly make hash -outer the skunk. I sure will. Jest nacherly make hash outer him——” - -He mumbled on for a spell, then dropped off to sleep, looking for -all the world—sitting there before the dying fire—like a little pile -of discarded old clothes thrown over a stump. - -Warburton waited a few minutes, gazing thoughtfully at him. At last, -getting cautiously to his feet, he saddled the mule and struck out -for the Huntington ranch. Tinnemaha Pete had given him enough of a -clew to go on. More important still, Jerome Liggs and Billy Gee were -one and the same. Jerome Liggs, who had disappeared three years ago -as if the earth had opened and swallowed him, was alive, here, on -the point of capture! Warburton rode slowly, warily along. This was -the biggest hour of his whole life. He was on the eve of the -greatest triumph of his career. - -“I’m a-goin’ to git you, Billy Gee. I’m a-goin’ to git you!” he -murmured into the night. - - -CHAPTER XV—THE POTENT INFLUENCE - -As has been said, Geerusalem was at the time the Mecca of the -gregarious creatures designated as wildcatters—ruthless, scoundrelly -gentlemen who wax fat by selling worthless blocks of fabulous mining -stock to gullibles and trusting innocents in far-away places, women -being for the most part their easier victims. To-day, they were the -power in Geerusalem, and Mrs. Liggs in her talk with Lex Sangerly -had not exaggerated the methods of these money-grabbing rascals one -whit. They controlled the camp and the representatives of the law. -They had the respectable citizenry figuratively by the throat, the -newspapers truckling to their wishes. Briefly, they did what they -pleased; not altogether openly, however. There was a grand jury down -at the county seat, a hundred miles or so away, that might happen to -train an eye in their direction, and certain State officials who -might start an investigation. - -Everything then that was done unlawfully was done under a veneer of -mystery, or lacking that, “framed” so cleverly as to deceive the -wiliest inquisitor, should such a rare bird appear on the ground. - -In the first place, the master mind of this invisible organization -was Jule Quintell. He was a formidable character physically and -mentally, merciless at the base, diplomatic and rash by turns; in -many ways a dual personality who could be trusted to put over -whatever he undertook. His was the gift to scheme, to set the stage, -to spring the trap, to wrest the holdings from the victim, whether -by eviction or the six-shooter, for property—mining property—was -what Quintell and his confederates wanted and were getting. -Individual claims and groups of claims were piling in on them, and -as fast as they were acquired they were parceled off, given a name, -put through the process of incorporation, and the stock floated. -Exquisitely engraved certificates found their way across the -continent to the gullibles and trusting innocents, who dreamed in -vain of enormous dividends which would set them on Easy Street in -short order. - -Claims that gave promise of paying were never thus exploited, -however. They were carefully prospected, “dressed up” if they did -not fulfill expectations, and through the medium of glowing reports -published in the subsidized newspapers, they sold for fancy prices; -for there were always rich suckers drifting into this infant prodigy -of gold camps, looking to invest. - -Boss Quintell’s associates, whom Mrs. Liggs had designated as the -“brains” of the element were, even as she had said, assayers, mining -engineers, surveyors, stockbrokers. There were more than a score of -them; as smug and high-handed a coterie of crooks as ever -sidestepped the penitentiary. Against their influence and methods, -the reputable competitor was promptly starved out, forced to seek a -living in other fields. The monopoly of swindling was perfected to a -point where the professions most intimately affiliated with mining -were included, these being amply represented in the trusted -membership of the magic circle. - -And yet, taken as a whole, this aggregation of grafters which had -its tentacles spread out across the entire Geerusalem mining -district, slowly killing the spirit of industry and discovery -without which no camp can live, were of themselves not only lacking -in strength but devoid of the necessary courage to defy the decent -element of the town, had the latter voiced objection to their -tactics. Whatever influence the Quintell crowd possessed, the very -success of their lawless enterprise, in fact the death grip they had -on the camp—these things they owed to that majority of population -that seems as much a part in the founding of a settlement in the -wilderness, as its tents and rock huts—the underworld. - -Here had forgathered the undesirable from the four winds—gunmen, -thieves, criminals of high and low degree, and they kept flocking in -and plied their vicious trades without fear of interruption. And -flocking in, also, came the type of woman that men know best and -fall easier prey to because they do, while added to these denizens -of the city’s slums, were the drifters, adventurers, and saloon -hangers-on, all bent on getting their share of gold at some other -fellow’s expense. - -With this formidable army of undesirables at its back, the Quintell -crowd ruled Geerusalem, and from it, chose its tools who went out at -night and beat up men, drove them off their claims, killed them if -they proved too troublesome. These tools got money for their work. -The element as a whole got protection—license to carry on as its -membership saw fit without interference from the local authorities, -whom Quintell, through bribe and political influence, held in the -hollow of his hand. Crime thrived accordingly, and the remote cases -that did come up for trial in the courts proved ridiculous farces -conducted more to impress the County Bar Association at the distant -county seat that jurisprudence was on the job, than as a matter of -stern equity. - -Now, on the very day that Lemuel Huntington had brought Billy Gee a -prisoner into camp, Quintell’s field men reported that Tinnemaha -Pete had discovered a rich gold ledge on the Huntington ranch. Late -that afternoon, while Lex Sangerly and Detectives Coates and Tyler -were searching for the outlaw’s loot at the ranch house half a mile -away, Quintell experts were investigating the ground with a view of -determining the extent of the deposit and estimating its value. - -They returned, bringing word that the find was a bonanza from the -grass roots, that the hill on the west end of the Huntington ranch -carried the croppings of three parallel ledges that apparently were -a continuation of the Geerusalem mineral belt. Tinnemaha Pete’s -location notices were made out in the names of Peter Boyd and Jerome -Liggs. - -Jule Quintell and his confederates held a two-hour meeting that -evening. They listened to the reports of the experts, heard them -voice the opinion that the new discovery promised to be a monumental -strike, eclipsing anything ever opened up before in the district. -They sat silent, grim of face, ominous, and blew wreaths of smoke -toward the ceiling. Presently they began discussing the matter. - -They must acquire this ground. The Geerusalem mines were good -producers, but here was something far better. Moreover, a sister -camp on the same mineral belt, only four miles distant, meant that -its owners would be millionaires overnight. It was not a proposition -of doing business with Tinnemaha Pete and Jerome Liggs. Whoever -these desert rats were did not enter into the issue, for though they -had found and located the deposit, they had no legal claim to it. -Lemuel Huntington owned the ground; it was patented ground. Lemuel -Huntington was the man they must deal with—Lem used to hobnob with -the crowd before he captured Billy Gee and got a start in the world. - -The meeting was held in Boss Quintell’s spacious private office in -the Brokers’ Exchange Building, a three-story frame structure that -housed the elaborate publicity and advertising departments—so -essential to successful wildcatting—of three of Geerusalem’s most -prominent stockbrokers. - -Messengers began arriving, one to say that Huntington and his -daughter had left for San Francisco, another with the information -that railroad detectives were occupying the ranch house. - -Quintell advanced the scheme to be followed for the acquisition of -the bonanza strike. “Big George” Rankin, owner of the Northern -Saloon and dominant figure in the camp’s underworld, was in San -Francisco on business. He was wired to meet Huntington and his -daughter at the ferry terminal, follow them, and telegraph back the -name of the hotel they put up at. Dick Lennox, a young mining -engineer—one of the lesser lights of the gang, but more intimate -with the rancher than any member of it—was chosen to go to the -metropolis and try to bargain for the purchase of the ranch. The -thing was to see Huntington before he returned to Geerusalem, for, -as Quintell pointed out, it was just possible that Dot’s father, -once back in the country, would hear rumors of the discovery of -mineral on his ground and refuse to sell except at his own terms. -Lemuel, then, must not surmise there was one pennyweight of gold on -his land. The land must be bought for a song, as it were. - -Receipt by Quintell of Lennox’s telegram telling of his failure to -turn the deal, along with Rankin’s report charging Lennox with -betraying the gang to win favor with Dot, infuriated the boss of -Geerusalem and his associates, made the mining engineer a marked -man, whose arrival in camp was awaited by gunmen with instructions -to “bump him off” as quietly as they could. But Lennox, returning -unexpectedly, got word of his danger from a member of the gang, who, -yielding to the other’s entreaties, hid him in a rear office room, -Lennox agreeing to leave as soon as it was dark. - -Terrified at the startling predicament in which he found himself and -not daring to risk flight by train or automobile, Lennox in his -extremity thought of Lex Sangerly, who he remembered was conducting -an investigation at the Huntington ranch. If Sangerly was there, he -knew he could prevail on him to drive him to Mirage; if he was not, -the ranch because of its isolation would furnish him a secure hiding -place until such time as he could find his way in safety out of the -country. - -With nightfall then, he struck out afoot for the ranch. He held to -the deserted back streets and went fast, stumbling along in his -feverish haste, glancing over his shoulder. When he reached the -outskirts of camp, where the rough rock cabins of the squatters -began to thin out and the vast emptiness of Soapweed Plains became -discernible through the wide mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, he breathed -easier and slackened his pace. He had eluded the assassins. He was -safe! - -But though he had been one of the Quintell crowd, Lennox had never -realized the depth of perfidy in its ranks. The very man who had -warned him and given him shelter, had done so merely to deliver him -into the hands of the killers. Therefore, no sooner had he reached a -lonely point beyond the camp’s confines, where the sagebrush and -greasewood rose thick on each side of the road, than he heard the -quick patter of running feet behind him. The moon was shining. As -Lennox turned, he made out four men bearing down on him less than a -hundred yards away. - -“Hey, Lennox, hold on a minute! The gang’s straightened things out. -The boss wants you to come back,” called out a jovial voice. - -The fugitive halted undecidedly for an instant. Then, recognizing -his pursuers as uncouthly dressed fellows whom he was sure he did -not know, he took to his heels. Instantly a volley of shots roared -out, and a hail of bullets went screaming past him. In the grip of -terror, he redoubled his speed, dashing desperately onward, gazing -about him for some means of escape. Presently his eyes lighted on a -shack looming black against the background of hill, a few yards to -one side of the road. Just as he discovered it his pursuers sent -another swarm of bullets after him. This time they got him. His leg -suddenly buckled under him, and he pitched headlong to the ground. - -“Help! Help!” he cried frenziedly, making a futile effort to get to -his feet. - -An answering shout broke from the quartet. Lennox glared around and -saw them coming, racing toward him. He could hear the gravel -crunching nearer with every footfall. He knew that they would shoot -him where he lay, without mercy, as they would shoot a dog, and his -horrible thought picked him off the road and sent him crawling madly -for the shack. - -He reached the door and pounded on it. - -“Open! They’re going to murder me. Open, in God’s name!” he panted -distractedly. - -There was a movement inside the cabin; then the door opened. - -“Come in!” said a man’s voice out of the darkness. - -Lennox dragged himself inside and lay half-fainting on the floor, -gasping for breath. - -Outside he could hear the sounds of the Quintell men approaching the -shack. Then the voice of his unknown deliverer broke quietly through -the place. - -“Stop where you are, strangers!” - -A heavy silence followed his words. - -“We’re deputy sheriffs, pal. You’ve got a man in there we want,” -said one of the men gruffly. - -“Let’s see yore authority. Depities kin always flash a tin buzzer. -Let’s see yourn.” - -“Never mind the authority. Do you turn him over or not?” - -The occupant of the shack gave a low chuckle. “You sure talk like a -depity, sport,” he said in genial tones. “But don’t you never let -Sheriff Warburton hear you make a crack like that——” - -The deafening crash of revolvers cut him short, as, without warning, -the gunmen fired. The bullets tore through the partly opened door, -and a shower of splinters fell on Lennox. - -“Get him, fellows! Get the——” cursed the spokesman. - -“At yore risk, men!” called out the unknown. He threw the door wide -and began shooting with a rapidity that set the mining engineer, -wounded and terrified though he was, marveling vaguely. - -The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun. A deep silence -followed. Soon Lennox heard his deliverer moving through the dark -interior and got a glimpse of him as he walked out into the -moonlight. He returned presently and halted in the gloom. - -“You hurt bad?” he asked. He spoke calmly, his voice pleasingly low. - -“My leg is broken,” said Lennox. “I don’t know that I can ever repay -you for saving my life, friend.” - -“I ain’t takin’ pay for savin’ a man’s life. I know what it is to be -a mouse with the cat after it. I’ll fix up yore leg the best I kin -in the dark. ’Tain’t safe to make a light. You got to have a doctor, -I reckon.” - -“Not from Geerusalem. It would be signing my own death warrant. -Quintell and his gang are after me.” - -“Huh! So, that’s who they were, eh? Purty hard-boiled bunch, that. -Now let’s see that busted leg.” - -Kneeling on the floor beside Lennox, he began bandaging above and -below the wound to stop the flow of blood. He worked in the dark -dexterously, tearing long strips of cloth and binding them tightly -around the fractured limb. At the end of ten minutes he rose to his -feet and lit a cigarette and stood for a moment at the door, -listening. - -“Why’re they tryin’ to git you?” he asked abruptly. - -“They sent me to Frisco to buy a ranch—the Huntington ranch; you -must know it. Anyway, I couldn’t turn the deal, and they blamed me. -Say, do you suppose there’s any danger of blood-poisoning?” - -The other did not reply. Lennox, propped on his elbow, waited -anxiously, a new alarm creeping into his heart. Silhouetted -statuelike in the rectangle of moonlight formed by the open door, -stood the stranger. He stood thus, motionless, for a short interval. -Then he inhaled deeply of his cigarette, tossed it away, and came -over to Lennox. - -“You give me an idea,” he said, with an odd chuckle. “I’ll git you -to the Huntington ranch. I figger I kin hustle up a doctor who won’t -talk.” He dropped to his haunches beside the other. “Here, ketch me -’round the neck. I’m packin’ you! My hoss is down the gulch a ways.” - -With the wounded man clinging to his back, he padlocked the door and -struck out through the brush. - -“What happened to them—the four, you know?” asked Lennox, glancing -about over the ground. “It isn’t possible they escaped, and——” - -“Sometimes, it’s healthy to keep yore front yard clean, pardner. -Folks are’ awful curious—if you know what I mean,” was the quiet -reply. - -The unknown’s horse stood tethered in a small draw. Helping Lennox -into the saddle, the man climbed on behind. They rode on in silence -for many minutes, following the deeply rutted, dusty road that -wormed its way among the windrows of sand and boulders which dotted -Soapweed Plains at this point. Behind them the Geerusalem hills rose -into the sky—a jumbled, massive gray pile, looking like some great, -nameless monster crouching in the night. - -“What they want the ranch for?” said the stranger, breaking the long -silence. - -“It’s immensely rich—in mineral. I hear it’s the richest gold strike -in the district. But they wouldn’t sell.” - -“By _they_, you mean Lem Huntington, don’t you?” - -“He was willing enough, at first. But his daughter——Well, to tell -the truth, it was a dirty scheme. I was to tell them the ranch was -wanted for a resort—one of those free-and-easy hangouts for the -sporting crowd. It seems as if there’s a grave in the garden—her -mother’s grave. And the girl wouldn’t—I certainly understand how she -feels.” - -“Her mother’s grave,” repeated the unknown very slowly. - -The horse jogged along with its double burden. Far ahead, a tiny -blur of black showed the location of the Huntington ranch. - -“My leg is hurting me fearfully,” said Lennox at last. “Damn them! -You don’t think there’s danger of blood-poisoning, do you?” - -“I’ve heard a lot about Miss Huntington. They say she’s a mighty -fine gal. I’d kinder like to know the pertick’lars if you don’t mind -tellin’ ’em. No, I don’t guess there’s danger o’ blood-poisonin’. -You’ll be all right in a month or two, mebby.” - -Lennox groaned at the cheerless prospect that confronted him. - -Presently, however, he began the story of the efforts of the -Quintell gang to purchase the Huntington holdings. His indignation -over their treatment of him loosened his tongue, caused him to -overlook not one detail that might go to illustrate the infamous -methods by which they operated. From their discovery that the two -prospectors, Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs, had located the bonanza -claims, how he had been delegated to talk Huntington into selling, -his meeting with Big George Rankin in San Francisco and later with -Dot and her father in the Golden West Hotel; all this he related and -concluded with the quarrel he and Rankin had had on the street -following his failure to buy the ranch. - -“An’ he said that—that Quintell mebby could use her, as his -stenographer?” said the stranger. His voice was like ice in the -other’s ear. - -“Yes, and about as nasty as a man could say it.” - -“Ain’t this Rankin the feller that owns the Northern Saloon—big -walloper with a red face, sorter straw boss o’ the Stingeree bunch?” - -“That’s he. I’ve heard he was bad clean through, one of the worst -characters——” - -“I know all about them kind, pal. They sure kin squeal, when you -start workin’ on ’em. Use her as his stenographer, eh?” he repeated, -as if to himself. - -They rode along in silence after that, save for the occasional groan -of suffering that broke from Lennox. Within a few hundred yards of -the Huntington ranch, the stranger drew rein and slid to the ground. - -“I’m goin’ to let you make it in alone,” he said in low tones. -“You’ll find two detectives there—Sangerly’s men. Jest holler, an’ -they’ll come out. Don’t tell nobody about meetin’ me or about the -shootin’ or anythin’. You understand? If they ask questions, jest -say Quintell’s men shot you, an’ that a friend took you in, an’ give -you a hoss.” - -“I’ll certainly never forget you, old man, for what you’ve done,” -replied the other. “My name is Dick Lennox. I’m a mining engineer, -and any time I can be of service to you, why——But who am I indebted -to? What is your name?” - -“There’ll be a doctor out here in an hour. You kin trust him. If -you’ll hang the bridle rein over the horn of the saddle, she’ll come -back to me. Mollie, git a-goin’!” he added, slapping the animal on -the flanks. - -A few minutes later, when Detective Coates came out to turn the -horse into the field, after he and his partner had carried Lennox -into the house, he found it gone. In the distance, toward -Geerusalem, he heard it galloping along, and concluded that, in -obedience to its natural instincts, it was returning home. - - -CHAPTER XVI—THE HAND OF QUINTELL - -The Lennox episode threw the forces that governed Geerusalem into a -vengeful attitude, not unmixed with doubt, and set working the -stealthy brotherhood under Big George Rankin to ascertain who had -aided the mining engineer, not only in escaping assassination and -mysteriously disappearing, but in killing four of the element’s most -daring and dependable gunmen. But far-reaching and thorough though -the investigation proved, not the least light was shed on the -matter. All that there seemed to be to the incident was that the -four had been found dead on the road, near the mouth of Geerusalem -Gulch, a hundred yards or more from a deserted cabin, and that -Lennox, unarmed, according to the statement of the man who had given -him temporary refuge in his office, had got away. - -What gave the occurrence a sinister aspect and set the Quintell gang -guessing, was the fact that this was the first time a plot of theirs -had miscarried, with such disastrous results—the first time their -assassins had been wiped out to the last man. Lennox, it was argued, -given guns and ammunition could not have possibly shot four men -without being killed. Besides, it was known that he was ignorant in -the use of firearms. He had received help then. Doubtless, he had -led the four into a trap to be slaughtered. By whom? Could it be -possible that the decent citizenry of the camp had organized, that -they had launched a secret war of extermination with a view of -shattering the power of the element? Was the Quintell dictatorship -threatened? These and other questions were discussed by the brains -of the camp’s control at a conference held in the Brokers’ Exchange -Building and laughed at by their big, arrogant leader. - -“Let them organize!” he whipped out harshly, his hard eyes sweeping -the circle seated around the conference table. “Let them start -heckling the combination, if they think they’re lucky! We’ll take -them down the line! If they’re looking for blood we’ll swim the camp -in it. I’m handling the thing, see? We’re going to ascertain -conditions, then we’ll strike suddenly. They won’t have a chance. -The first matter to be cleared up is Lennox, the damned traitor -knows too much. He must be found and stopped. It’s worth five -thousand dollars to us to put him where he can’t talk. I have his -Pasadena home address, and men will leave on the night train to get -him, if he’s gone there. Others are investigating the scene of the -killing to see if they can pick up his trail. We’ll get him. We have -to get him, or he’ll get us. Once he begins spouting and that -moss-back grand jury begins digging around up here, we may as well -begin jumping into Mexico.” - -At the conclusion of the meeting and just as his confederates were -preparing to depart, Quintell said: - -“Huntington has returned home, and the two railroad detectives are -in camp with their baggage. I’ve been informed by the Western Union -night operator they were wired to return to Los Angeles. Huntington -is alone at the ranch. That means, the ranch is ours. I’ll have the -quit-claim by midnight to-night. In the morning, Rankin will rush a -bunch of men out there to attend to Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs. By -the way, does anybody know where Huntington’s daughter is staying in -Frisco? Well, no matter. I’ll find out. If the old bum don’t come -through decent, he gets the limit. The new strike, gentlemen, is as -good as ours.” - -When they were gone, Quintell sat back in his swivel chair and began -glancing through a fistful of that day’s mail. He halted over one -letter, frowned at it a moment, and pressed the buzzer under the -edge of his desk. That letter bore the signature: “Lex Sangerly, -Division Superintendent, M. & S. R. R. Co.” - -The door leading into the outer offices opened, and a tall -hawk-eyed, middle-aged man entered. He came forward with long, -noiseless strides, watching his employer over his glasses. - -“Harrison, how about this?” snapped Quintell, handing over -Sangerly’s letter to the other. “The date! Look at the date! It’s -ten days since we received——” - -“Permit me, Mr. Quintell,” broke in Harrison suavely. “You -instructed me to file it, pending receipt of certificates of record -from the county recorder, if you will remember. They came to-day, -sir. The surveyors will complete their work this afternoon, I -understand. In fact, the only thing remaining to be done is to draw -up papers of incorporation of the Lucky Boy Placer Company, if that -is the name you have decided on for the group.” - -“Draw them up immediately! Rush them through! That name will do as -well as any other. On your way out, send me in a stenographer to -take dictation.” - -“Pardon, Mr. Quintell.” The man hesitated. “But if you intend to -answer Mr. Sangerly’s letter—er—you were in conference, sir, and I -wouldn’t disturb you. He’s out there, waiting to speak with you.” - -The other stared, then rose slowly to his feet. “Sangerly? Are you -sure?” - -“Yes, sir. Division superintendent of the——” - -A curse broke from Quintell. He stood with his powerful hands -resting on the desk, his penetrating coal-black eyes playing slowly -over the room for a few moments. - -“I want them to find gold on the Lucky Boy, Harrison, understand?” -he said in low, harsh tones, gazing intently at the man. “I want you -to go out there this evening, see? You know the vicinity of the -proposed right of way. Salt it! The thing must be done thoroughly, -cleverly. Salt it, in patches, on either side of the bench marks. -Mark those patches. When I take Sangerly out there in the morning, -you come along with us. It’ll be up to you to take samples of the -ground. Those samples must wash gold, understand? - -“I’m leaving this matter to you, Harrison. If we put over this deal -you get a thousand-dollar bonus and a substantial salary increase. -But there must be no slip. When you do business with a railroad -company you’re going against the real thing. Remember that! They’ve -got the dough and they’re wise as hell.” He turned abruptly and, -going over to a large safe on the opposite side of the room, took -from its interior a wide-mouthed bottle containing several ounces of -placer gold. “Here’s your salt. Use it all if you have to, but make -a good job of it,” he added, giving Harrison the bottle. “You have -your instructions. See that you follow them. Now, show him in.” - -The man bowed respectfully and left the room. - -Lex Sangerly, in obedience to a telegram received from his father, -had left San Francisco hurriedly and arrived in Geerusalem that -morning. Motoring out to the Huntington ranch, he found Coates and -Tyler preparing to leave for the south, temporarily called away from -the Billy Gee chase to take up some work of more immediate -importance. Lex had a long talk with Lennox, as the latter lay -stretched out in bed, his leg in a plaster cast, and from what the -mining engineer told him, concluded that far from exaggerating the -ruthlessness and power of the Quintell combination, Mrs. Liggs, in -her warning to him had quite obviously given him but the barest -glimpse of existing conditions. Lemuel, attired in a rakishly-cut -corduroy suit and the best that money could buy in buckled boots, -smoked his cigar with amazing dignity and talked cattle raising with -Lex, like the owner of ten thousand herds. - -Driving the two detectives to camp, Sangerly bade them good-by and -steered his roadster up through the jam of traffic to the Brokers’ -Exchange Building. Now, at Harrison’s invitation, he entered -Quintell’s inner office and waited, while the boss of Geerusalem, -without deigning his visitor so much as a glance, finished perusing -his mail. He sat back finally and trained his piercing, black eyes -on the other. - -“Mr. Sangerly, I presume,” he began, with cold business courtesy, -and paused awkwardly as he recognized in his caller the stranger -with whom he had collided on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Liggs’ -store one evening some weeks before. - -He got up out of his chair now and approached Lex, smiling -deprecatingly, his hand extended. - -“Mr. Sangerly, I owe you my humblest apology as regards my rude -behavior on the occasion of our first meeting. I have worried -considerably about it and have made inquiries in an effort to learn -your name and whereabouts. The fact that I had been drinking does -not, of course, excuse my conduct. However, I sincerely hope you -will forgive me for insulting you as I did. I am extremely sorry, -sir.” - -“The incident is past and, so far as I am concerned, forgotten, Mr. -Quintell,” said Lex pleasantly. “I, in turn, am sorry that you let -it bother you for, to be candid, I haven’t given it a second -thought.” - -Quintell drew up a chair before his desk, motioned the other into -it, and resumed his own. He brought out a box of choice cigars and -held a lighted match for his visitor. - -“You doubtless surmise my errand, Mr. Quintell,” said Lex presently. -“It is in relation to——” - -“For the second time, I must ask you to bear with me,” broke in -Quintell, picking up the letter he had discussed with Harrison. -“Through a regrettable oversight on the part of my secretary, your -communication was not called to my attention until fifteen mintes -ago. You should have had an answer a week since.” - -“It hardly matters. I have been away from the office since I wrote -you,” said Lex and added: “To get down to business, Mr. Quintell, I -see that your surveyors are going ahead, that you seem disposed to -block construction of a branch line into Geerusalem.” - -“Discourage the coming of the railroad!” burst out the other. “Why, -Mr. Sangerly, I’m not altogether a madman! I want the railroad. The -camp is a unit for it. It spells progress, greater industry, greater -opportunity!” - -Lex nodded. “My father, who is Western manager of the road, -instructed me to speak with you quite plainly on the matter. To -begin, every landowner along the entire fifty-three miles of -proposed line, from the station of Mirage to Geerusalem, has granted -us the privilege of a right of way for the asking. Coöperation has -been extended to us on every hand. We were encouraged and we -proceeded with construction. Almost twenty miles of track have been -laid out of Mirage. - -“To-day, at this end, we are confronted with a situation that, were -it not so grave in its ultimate results, would be ridiculous to a -degree. I refer to that old, abandoned group of claims—the Lucky Boy -group, I believe you called them in your letter—which has suddenly -come to life. As we both know, they are located across the mouth of -Geerusalem Gulch, boasting as their only improvements a dilapidated -twelve-foot-square shack. We have learned that you and seven other -men have quite recently filed on these claims, as placer ground. -Since the proposed branch must cross this ground of yours to reach -the terminal site here in camp, we assume your action was taken with -the deliberate intention of making us come to you. Now, the point -is, Mr. Quintell, do you gentlemen propose to grant us the same -right of way privileges we have been receiving, or are you simply -out to hold us up?” - -It was a blunt question, but Quintell laughed it away in his gayest -manner. - -“My dear Mr. Sangerly, you are utterly in error. You don’t seem to -view the situation from the right angle. In much the same way, not -being a railroad man, I myself cannot fully appreciate your method -of reasoning. Just for instance, what would you say if I told you -that the Lucky Boy group is perhaps one of the richest placer-gold -deposits discovered in California in the last twenty years?” - -He had risen and was standing before his visitor, his hands thrust -into his pockets, his shrewd eyes fixed on Lex. - -“Of course,” he qualified impressively, “when I say richest, please -don’t mistake my meaning. Indications on the surface are such as to -leave no doubt that gold is present in enormous quantities. This, -Mr. Sangerly, is an actual fact. Moreover, I will prove the truth of -my statement whenever it suits your convenience.” - -Lex regarded him in silence for some seconds. “How long since you -made this discovery?” he asked at last. - -“About two weeks ago. We’ve been keeping it quiet—which is a hard -thing to do in a mining camp. We’ve had men looking up the records -to be certain that we were not going up against a hang-fire title -and subsequent litigation. To-morrow we intend to plaster the front -pages of the newspapers with the story. Armed guards will be placed -on the property to protect it from claim jumpers.” He paused, -dropped back into his chair, and nursed one knee in his hands. “So, -Mr. Sangerly, you surely must appreciate our reluctance in complying -with your company’s request for permission to lay tracks across this -ground. It is far too valuable, we believe. Frankly, it is a -question of money with us, and you can scarcely criticize us if we -regard the matter from a purely financial standpoint. But to say -that we are deliberately trying to hold your people up, that -statement, Mr. Sangerly, is both uncalled for and unkind.” - -Lex lit his cigar thoughtfully. He frowned at the elaborate rug at -his feet. Quintell watched him intently. - -“Of course, if my company desired a right of way over the Lucky Boy -group badly enough you would grant it the privilege of purchase—for -a reasonable figure?” said Lex presently. “You just stated that the -railroad would prove a big asset to the camp.” - -“In view of the fact that my partners and myself have interests here -that would be indirectly benefited by better transportation -facilities, yes, we would be glad to consider such a purchase. You -must understand, Mr. Sangerly, that we have no fight with your -company. The whole thing is a cold business proposition. If you know -the difference between lode and placer mining you must realize that -the latter’s workable area is strictly surface. Such being the case, -a railroad bed passing over gold-bearing gravel——” - -“Approximately, what would it stand us to get a single-track right -of way over this ground, Mr. Quintell? I would like to wire -immediate word to my people,” broke in Lex. - -The other rubbed his heavy chin thoughtfully. “The price would have -to be based on the valuation per cubic yard of pay dirt over which -the roadbed must of necessity have to pass. This strip, as you can -readily see, would be lost to development; we could not work it. -Samples of the gravel would be taken and a thorough assayer’s test -made to ascertain its average gold-bearing value. On the whole, Mr. -Sangerly, we want only what is legitimately coming to us—no more, no -less.” - -Lex rose to go. “In my opinion, you should encourage the -construction of this branch line rather than place an obstacle in -the way of its building. At best it is only a venture, depending -entirely on the continued prosperity of Geerusalem, and it is -costing more per mile than any strip of road the company has laid in -years. I’d like to look over this placer ground, Mr. Quintell—that -is, take samples of the gravel. When would it be convenient for you -to accompany me?” - -“I was about to suggest that you come here about—say, ten o’clock, -to-morrow morning. A party of us are motoring down there, and I’d be -happy to have you join us,” said Quintell genially, getting to his -feet. “Allow me also to extend to you the hospitality of my home -while you are here, Mr. Sangerly. The hotels are abominable. I have -a modern little bungalow, an extra room, and all the city’s -conveniences—including a Japanese chef, who is really a culinary -artist.” He laughed. - -“That’s indeed a tempting invitation, and I’d snap it up if it -weren’t for the fact that I’m pretty comfortably established at the -Huntington ranch,” said Lex. - -Quintell’s black eyes opened in genuine surprise. “Well! So you’re a -friend of old Lem’s, too? There’s a corking fine type of Westerner -for you, Sangerly. Too bad it’s dying out, going the way of the -traditional hospitality of the West. While I think of it, how is -Miss Dot getting on?” - -“Remarkably well. She has taken up a number of special summer -courses at the University of California and is forging right ahead.” -Lex paused and added with a smile: “She’s bent on immortalizing -Geerusalem and Soapweed Plains. She’s writing a novel.” - -“A novel?” echoed Quintell, interested. - -“Nothing less, and on no more romantic a personage than Billy Gee, -the bandit. There are other notables in the story, for instance, -yourself, myself, the wildcat bunch, Mrs. Agatha Liggs, who used to -keep the little dry-goods store, Sheriff Warburton, and a lot of -others. I’ll wager she’ll dispose of five thousand copies in this -section alone. Besides, it is quite probable my company will -purchase several thousand for advertising purposes.” - -Quintell looked pleased. “She can count on me for five hundred; you -may tell Lem that. Your mention of Mrs. Liggs reminds me—do you -happen to know if she’s related to a Jerome Liggs?” - -Lex stopped in the act of putting on his hat. The other was quick to -note the odd look that came into his eyes. - -“Jerome was her son,” he said slowly. “Why do you ask? I’m just a -little curious.” - -“Do you mean that he’s dead? You said—_was_ her son?” countered -Quintell adroitly. But his manner was plainly skeptical, and Lex saw -it. - -“That is what I’ve been told. It isn’t possible that you’ve heard——” - -“Oh, no! Some days ago I happened to run across an old transaction -in which his name appeared. There was a sum of money -involved—nothing to speak of, though,” lied Quintell glibly. - -But Sangerly did not believe him. As he walked out of the Brokers’ -Exchange Building, he reviewed the matter in his mind and decided to -reopen the subject with Quintell in the morning. Could Mrs. Liggs -have deceived him regarding Jerome’s death? Could it really be that -she had deliberately lied—Mrs. Liggs, the most upstanding, the best -little woman he had ever known? He would not allow himself to -believe it. The very thought was a sacrilege. And yet he remembered -now that she had never so much as mentioned Jerome’s name, since the -day he met her at the store, when, seated in the living room, he had -inquired after his boyhood chum. Indeed, now that he recalled that -meeting, it did seem as if she had acted strangely and that she had -scarcely referred to her son as a bereaved mother would; and if any -mother ever loved her son, it was Mrs. Liggs. - -Thinking thus, he made his way down the crowded street to the -Miners’ Hotel, called for his mail, and arranged with Merriman, the -proprietor, to hold his room for him as headquarters for railroad -officials who would visit the camp from time to time. As he turned -to walk out of the hotel office, a copy of that afternoon’s -_Searchlight_ lying on the desk caught his eye. He glanced at it -idly, then stared; and his bewilderment grew as he read the double -column of black-face type, announcing what was reported to be a -rumor that Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome Liggs, prospectors, had -made the sensational gold strike of the year. The account, -conforming with the style so popular among certain newspapers to -swell their sales, was staggering to the eye but hazy as to details, -and merely hinted that the new bonanza was situated in a range -southwest of camp. - -Now, while the coincidental appearance of the name of the man of -whom he had just been thinking, dumfounded Lex for the moment, it -had a diametrically opposite effect on Jule Quintell when he saw it. - -Following Sangerly’s departure, the boss of Geerusalem had settled -back in his chair and fallen into moody reflection. - -“It just might be that this old fossil, Tinnemaha Pete, entered the -son’s name in those claim notices, instead of the mother’s,” he -muttered to himself. “Sangerly says he’s dead, and he spoke as if he -knew. Well, nothing like being sure.” He reached for a pencil and -pad and wrote: - - Jerome Liggs, wanted for robbery of Marysville city treasury three - years ago, is operating claims on Lemuel Huntington ranch near - Geerusalem. - -Leaving the note unsigned he read it over grimly and rang for -Harrison. That individual came bolting into the room almost -instantly, carrying in one outflung hand a copy of the _Searchlight_ -and banging the door after him. - -“McQuaid’s spilled the beans!” he cried. “Look at this, sir! He -published the story of the strike—the Huntington ranch story, sir!” - -Quintell glared at his secretary in unbelief; then his big body -stiffened, and his face purpled with rage. He tore the paper from -the other’s grasp and skimmed through the account with flaming eyes. -A frightful oath burst from him. - -“Damn him! The bonehead! Another traitor!” he sputtered savagely. -“I’ll teach the fool a lesson. He’ll pay for this——” He snatched the -receiver off the telephone and called up the _Searchlight_ editorial -rooms. A man’s voice answered presently. - -“Hello! This you, McQuaid?” - -“Mr. McQuaid is no longer here. Is there anything I can do——” - -“What do you mean—no longer there? Say, who is this talking? I said, -McQuaid—the editor. Tell him Quintell wants him.” - -“I got you the first time, friend,” was the quiet reply. “Mr. -McQuaid sold out this morning. The _Searchlight_ is under new -management.” - -Quintell took a slow breath. His rage cooled. “This is rather -unexpected news. I wasn’t prepared for it. May I ask who bought him -out?” - -“Los Angeles people. We are reorganizing the paper, making a change -in policy, and all that sort of thing.” - -“I see,” said Quintell and added: “Is there any truth to that Boyd -and Liggs gold-strike story? I see you’ve featured it.” - -“Why, we’re trying to verify the report. I’d say it looks the -goods.” - -Quintell chuckled, but his eyes were smoldering venomously. “Who -started the rumor—got any idea?” he asked. - -“I’m sorry, Mr. Quintell, but we do not divulge our sources of -information,” said the other. - -“Oh, certainly—certainly. Beg pardon. I should have known better. I -assume you’re the new editor?” - -“Yes—Babcock. I have heard a lot about you, Mr. Quintell, and hope -to have the pleasure of meeting you——” - -“The pleasure will be mutual, Mr. Babcock,” said Quintell -significantly, as he hung up. - -For some moments the boss of Geerusalem sat motionless, his gaze -riveted on that prominently displayed first-page story which he and -his confederates had guarded so carefully for weeks past against -circulation, while they bided their time until Lemuel Huntington -should return to the solitude of his ranch and, under the influence -of their power, be forced to part with his holdings. Quintell knew -positively that whoever tipped the story off to the _Searchlight’s_ -new management was well aware that the strike was on Huntington’s -land. An attempt to verify the rumor would result, Quintell was -certain, in the location of the bonanza and all the details -appearing, possibly in the very next issue of this paper over which -he and his gang had, with mysterious suddenness, lost all control. -Huntington would see the account, public attention would be focused -on the Huntington ranch, and Quintell & Co. would have to pay a -fancy price if they hoped to acquire the property. - -Following a short interval of black reflection, Quintell sprang out -of his chair and stormed about his office. Harrison stood, toying -nervously with a pencil, watching his master. - -“McQuaid sold us out—the rat!” roared the broker. “He had the -details. He got his price and crossed us, the cur! Jumped out of -camp before we could——” - -“He may not have, sir,” interrupted the secretary suavely. “McQuaid -never impressed me as being that type.” - -“No? Who, then? Who, then? These prospectors, who have no legal -rights? What a chance!” - -“You forget, Mr. Quintell, that Dick Lennox also knew, and he evaded -capture.” - -The other stopped in his furious pacing and wheeled, fastening his -penetrating black eyes on Harrison. He started to speak, then -changed his mind. His lips parted in a cold, triumphant smile. - -“If Lennox is still in the country I’ll know it in half an hour,” he -said at last. “Wherever he is, I’ll know. I should have thought of -this before—fool, that I am!” He strode over to his desk, picked up -the unsigned note he had written, and handed it to the secretary. -“Here, wire this to Sheriff Warburton, at the county seat! See that -it can’t be traced back to us. Get Rankin up here as soon as you -can. This cocky new editor will never print the verification of that -story, Harrison. You can gamble on that! And listen: Don’t forget -that little job you have at the Lucky Boy to-night. I’m driving out -to Huntington’s around eight and I’ll be coming away from there not -later than nine thirty. If you’ll wait for me I’ll pick you up on my -way in. We’re putting over these two propositions, -Harrison—possession of the new strike claims and sale of the Lucky -Boy group—if we have to go to hell to do it.” - -“I quite agree with you, sir,” said the other as he left the room. - -True to his boast, half an hour afterward—following a brief talk -with the town constable over the telephone—Quintell got proof that -Lennox was in hiding in the district. The official reported in -person to say that, as the broker had suggested, he had gone to the -post office and, representing that Lennox was being investigated in -connection with a felony charge and that he wished to ascertain the -fellow’s whereabouts, had learned from the postmaster that the -mining engineer’s mail had been turned over to Lex Sangerly that -very afternoon, on presentation by the latter of a written request -signed by Lennox. - -Since Sangerly had told him that he was staying at the Huntington -ranch, Quintell decided that it was the logical place to look for -the man who had betrayed the confidence of the gang. - - -CHAPTER XVII—ONE SILENT NIGHT - -On the evening that Sheriff Warburton left Tinnemaha Pete slumbering -beside the camp fire at Blue Mud Spring and rode off for the -Huntington ranch, Lemuel prepared supper early for himself and -Lennox in order that he might have as much time as possible to -devote to the laborious task of writing Dot a letter. - -In a large pantry off the kitchen, which prior to Lennox’s coming -had served as a storeroom, the mining engineer lay on a cot, -helpless; his broken leg was mending as rapidly as could be -expected, according to the doctor who had made his clandestine -visits under cover of darkness. - -Around sundown, Lex Sangerly had returned from Geerusalem, following -his talk with Quintell, and stopping long enough to leave the mail, -motored away to the railroad construction camp, thirty miles -distant, declaring he would not be back until late. - -So, after he had washed the dishes, Lemuel began elaborate -preparations, calculated to usher in becomingly his penmanship -ordeal. He trimmed the tall kitchen-table lamp, polished its chimney -carefully, got out a writing tablet, envelope, pen and ink, filled -and lighted his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and finally squared -himself firmly before the table and started, after a long interval -of painful reflection. - -He had so much to tell Dot. He must notify her that Lex was making -the ranch his headquarters; that Dick Lennox was there also, after -nearly having been killed by the Quintell gang; that the Geerusalem -branch of the Mohave & Southwestern was due to pass in front of the -ranch-house door; that he had sold four tons of alfalfa; that her -pet cow, Bess, was a proud mother, and that he had collected -forty-three eggs that day. - -After considerable feinting with the pen, he got under way. It was a -warm, quiet night. The pen scratched and scratched hesitatingly. The -patient old clock on the wall tick-ticked on and on tirelessly. A -contented bullfrog out in the cool garden began a hoarse pæan, a -dedication to the silence, and broke off midway in a measure. Lemuel -finished his second page, then sat back and fired his pipe. With a -critical eye, he read what he had written: - - Geerusalem, Aug. 29. - - My own deares dorter: I jest got yore welcom leter an was orful - glad to heer you bin doin so fine in skule. Lex Sangerly he tol me - all about you givin him the $20,000. I allus knowed you was as - hones as the day is long, sweethart, an I tol him so an he sed you - sure was the fines gal he ever seen. An I sed they didn make em no - better, an I was proud of you. You orter herd us. You sure wood - a-bin stuck on yoreself. But lissen, honey, an I want that you - should bare in mind that bein yore ol dad Im allus lookin out for - yore interes. An that is, you gotter fergit this Billy Gee galoot. - I dont know why he give you that money xcept that Sangerly sez it - was to help us out. But you gotter figger hes a outlaw, an aint no - good nohow. So help me Moses, if I git another chanct at him I - sure will drag him off to the calaboose. - -Grinning proudly, Lemuel picked up his pen again, dipped it in the -ink, and started on his third page. Then he stopped. The kitchen -doorknob was squeaking. He stared at it and saw to his dismay that -it was moving. Some hand was trying it. His heart quickened -suddenly. He remembered that he had not turned the key! - -It was some distance to the door; but his rifle stood in the corner, -just out of reach. He slid cautiously out of his chair to get the -weapon. At that very moment, however, the door had opened and -closed, and a man stood in the room, his six-shooter covering -Lemuel. - -“Pull down the shades, Huntington! Git a hustle on you!” the -intruder commanded quietly, as he locked the door. - -The rancher gazed at him, horror growing in his eyes. His visitor -was Billy Gee! Arrived at last was the hour he had so long dreaded, -though he had believed it indefinitely postponed; for he had been -certain the outlaw would hesitate to make an overt move against him -while Lennox and Sangerly were there. But his Nemesis had come, and -now Lemuel vividly recalled the fellow’s dire threat, made on that -eventful morning in Warburton’s room in Geerusalem. He grew faint -with terror and, trembling violently, lost no time in obeying the -other’s order. - -“Now, sit down!” directed Billy Gee. He waited until Lemuel slumped -weakly into his seat, then he drew up a chair to the opposite side -of the table, holstered his gun and, his eyes never leaving the -rancher’s face, got out the makings and flipped a cigarette -together. - -Lemuel watched him in fearful fascination, trying to fathom his -intentions, hoping in vain that by some means, Lennox, helpless -though he was in the grip of the plaster cast, might rescue him from -his awful predicament. After a moment, it began to dawn on him that -Billy Gee was not displaying those evidences of rage and hatred that -he felt certain should forecast revenge. In fact, he thought the -outlaw seemed friendly, notwithstanding the steely glitter in his -eyes. At any rate, he told himself, the fellow looked well-fed, -well-groomed, handsome indeed, compared to that wan, hollow-eyed, -half-dead wretch he had delivered to Bob Warburton on that -never-to-be-forgotten morning. - -“What’re you shakin’ about?” asked Billy Gee presently. “I had an -idea you was gritty, the way you acted that time you herded me into -camp.” He showed his even teeth in a hard grin. “I promised I’d make -you pay, Huntington. You remember that? I ain’t forgot it, but I -ain’t ready yet. I jest dropped in to have a quiet leetle chat with -you. I see Lex Sangerly is stoppin’ here with you, an’ the minin’ -engineer, Lennox. How’s he gettin’ along?” - -“He—what d’you want? I’m busy. I’m—I’m writin’,” burst out Lemuel -nervously. - -“I hear Miss Dot is doin’ fine at the university,” said the other, -with a glance at the letter. “I wish you’d give her my best -reegards. You sure got a lady for a daughter, Huntington, an’ it -ain’t from yore side of the fam’ly either.” - -A short, painful silence fell. Billy Gee’s glance wandered to the -storeroom where Lennox lay. - -“Grab the lamp! I want to see how he’s makin’ out,” he said, rising -to his feet as he spoke. - -Preceded by Lemuel bearing the light, he crossed the kitchen and -entered the little room. Halting beside the cot he smiled down at -its occupant. - -“Hello, pard! How’re you feelin’?” - -Lennox regarded him curiously a moment, then grinned. “You’re the -man who saved my life, aren’t you? I’m feeling better than I did -that night. My leg is knitting, but it’s hell lying here.” - -“It sure must be. I reckon you’ll come out all right, though. Say, -I’d lay poorty low if I was you! The Quintell bunch’s after you, red -hot.” - -“But why?” argued Lennox. “I’m not in Geerusalem. They’ve run me -out. I’ve quit.” - -Billy Gee nodded. “That’s jest it. They’re skeert you’ll talk. You -know too much about their leetle game. I got the straight tip. -They’re set on gettin’ you.” - -Alarm crept into the other’s face. “And I’m flat on my back, unable -to protect myself. That’s certainly cheerful news.” - -“Sorry, I couldn’t give you nothin’ better,” said Billy Gee simply. -Some moments later he turned to leave the room. “Me and Huntington’s -got business together if you’ll excuse us. Hope you’ll come out all -right.” - -Once back in the kitchen, the table between them, the outlaw studied -Lemuel speculatively for a few seconds. - -“What did them two railroad detectives do the night I rambled off in -their automobile? Sorter jolted ’em, didn’t it?” he asked finally. - -“They didn’t do nothin’. They was sore, of course, an’ started -quarrelin’ among themselves. I s’pose you knowed they left here -to-day?” Lemuel paused and added: “I—I oughter mebby thank you for -doin’ me a favor. They was goin’ to arrest me.” - -Billy Gee laughed softly. “I heerd ’em gabbin’ about it. Miss Dot -turned the money back to Lex Sangerly, didn’t she? I’m glad she -did—now.” He shifted in his chair, placed his elbows on the table, -and covered the rancher with an intense look. “I come to ask a favor -off o’ you, Huntington. It ain’t a favor either. You owe it to me. I -give you yore start, so to speak. You made ten thousand dollars off -o’ me—sold me like you would one of yore cows. I’ll never forget -that. You’re goin’ to pay heavy for it some o’ these days. See if -you don’t! Right now I’m askin’ what’s part mine, savvy? I want you -to give Tinnemaha Pete a deed o’ gift to that hill on the far end of -the ranch.” - -Lemuel sat bolt upright, then a hoarse exclamation burst from him. -He paled through his sunburn. “Good Lord, man! You don’t aim to take -the leetle I got?” he choked. - -“If that hill was bringin’ you in anythin’, I wouldn’t ask it, -Huntington—bad as I’d like to hurt you,” said Billy Gee evenly. “But -it ain’t. A steer’d starve to death for the grass that’s on it, and -you know it. Tinnemaha is lookin’ to do some prospectin’ an’ he -don’t figger to deevelop another man’s property. He’ll be here to -see you to-morrow or nex’ day. An’ you see that you give him a deed, -see, or—well, I’ll be back, you kin gamble on that!” - -“But can’t you see, I got two full quarter sections, an’ cuttin’ off -that strip’ll ruin ’em?” cried Lemuel, in desperation. “An’ there’s -my poor, leetle gal tryin’ to git a edjucation, an’——” - -“Miss Dot’ll manage fine an’ dandy, I reckon,” asserted the bandit. -“I hear she’s livin’ with Mrs. Liggs, an’ I don’t know of a better -woman in the world than her. Mind what I’m a-tellin’ you, -Huntington! You give ol’ Tinnemaha Pete a quit-claim title to that -there hill, an’ don’t lose no time doin’ it. D’you understand? I’m -goin’ to keep cases on you, an’ if I find out you ain’t done it, God -help you!” - -He broke off short and flapped his hat suddenly at the lamp, -plunging the kitchen in darkness. His trained ear had caught a sound -outside the house. The next instant he had flitted around the table -and was standing over Lemuel. - -“Don’t move! Don’t answer, no matter what!” he whispered into the -rancher’s ear. - -Approaching from the direction of Geerusalem, now came the gentle -purring of an automobile. Lemuel in the grip of mixed emotions -waited breathlessly. He waited for Billy Gee to speak. He was not -sure where the outlaw was. He strained his ears through the -darkness, listening. The machine came to a stop before the ranch. -That could not be Sangerly, he knew. Who then? Ah, the doctor! - -“You’d better git outside if you’re goin’ to do any shootin’,” -Lemuel said in subdued tones, addressing the gloom. “That’s Doc -Porter comin’ to see Lennox. Don’t go to killin’ him.” - -There was no reply. - -Heavy footfalls sounded on the kitchen porch. They stopped and went -suddenly blundering down the back steps and on through the garden, -bound for the front of the house. A revolver began roaring savagely; -a strident voice boomed on the night, commanding a halt. Lemuel -reached out a cautious hand for the outlaw, feeling for him, but -found he was no longer standing beside him. He sprang to his feet, -then caught up his rifle out of the corner, and groped his way -toward the front door. - -“Mr. Huntington, what was that? Is that them after me? Huntington, -are you—— Give me a gun, man! Don’t let me die like a rat,” cried -Lennox wildly, his voice ringing through the house. - -“Rat, be damned!” called back Lemuel. “It’s the bandit friend of -yourn I’m after. The skunk! Here’s where he gits what’s a-comin’ to -him.” - -He charged along the dark hall and got to the front door. It stood -wide open. Billy Gee had fled. Halting undecidedly on the threshold, -his rifle held ready, Lemuel glared about. The automobile stood at -the gate, its headlights blazing. He heard the man of the heavy -footfalls plunging down the gravel walk, then his harsh, -authoritative tones. - -“Stick up yore hands, in the name of the law! Up with ’em, I said, -or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!” A dramatic pause, then: “Now -march over to the house! Thought you could visit round free an’ -easy, eh? Well, yore visitin’ days is about over, sport. Git a -hustle on you!” - -“This is an outrage, officer. You’ve got the wrong man,” protested -the prisoner indignantly. - -“Yeh? Well, we’ll see about that. You put it over pretty on the -train, kid, but you ain’t never doin’ it ag’in, let me tell you. If -you don’t shet yore face, I will. Hey, Lem! Make a light in there. -This is Bob Warburton.” - -The sheriff, following the clew given him by Tinnemaha Pete—that -Billy Gee was at the Huntington ranch—had ridden direct from Blue -Mud Spring. Creeping onto the kitchen porch, he had heard the outlaw -and Lemuel talking. He had seen the light suddenly extinguished, and -had heard the approaching machine. Racing around the house, he had -caught sight of a man dodging into the gloom of the garden shrubbery -and had apprehended him. - -Now, at the sheriff’s words, Lemuel hurried back into the kitchen -and lit the lamp. Presently Warburton appeared herding his captive -unceremoniously before him. Lemuel stared blankly at the latter, and -the official, giving him one look, burst into a torrent of curses. -His prisoner was Jule Quintell, pale, unnerved, but furious over the -rough reception he had received. - -“Isn’t this rather cheap comedy for the sheriff of San Buenaventura -County to pull?” sneered the broker. His attitude was one of -contempt and defiance. - -The sheriff, in the act of hurrying out to make a search of the -premises, wheeled, flushing with rage. “Say that ag’in, mister!” He -spoke in a voice that Lemuel, in the many years he had known him, -had never heard him use before. - -“I’m Jule Quintell, of Geerusalem, Sheriff Warburton. I protest -emphatically against this sort of treatment,” began the man, -assuming an air of resentful dignity. - -“Oh, you are! Well, let me tell you somepn, Quintell: You jest make -another crack like that, an’ see what happens. I’ve heerd you’re the -big I-am over in these parts,” continued Warburton, glowering at the -other. “An’ they tell me you got all kinds of pull. But don’t you -ever git in my way, Quintell. D’you understand?” - -The broker extracted a cigarette from his dainty gold case. “That’s -more of an order than a threat, isn’t it, sheriff?” he asked coolly. - -“You can find that out for yoreself,” retorted Warburton. - -Quintell chuckled. “Very well, sheriff. Should the opportunity ever -present itself, I most certainly will make the test. Now, if you’ll -excuse me, I’d like to take up a small business matter with Mr. -Huntington here.” He turned toward Lemuel. “And how have you been, -Lem? I hear that Billy Gee is at large again. How unfortunate—after -you went to all the trouble and danger of capturing him!” - -Warburton’s face flamed under the thrust. He opened his mouth to -speak, then closed it hard over his set teeth. Turning on his heel, -he walked out of the kitchen, gripping his six-shooter in a hand -that shook with rage. - - -CHAPTER XVIII—SKULKING SHADOWS - -Meanwhile, Billy Gee had reached his horse tethered conveniently -near by and struck out across the plains. It was still early -evening, the sky thick-strewn with brilliant stars. He rode along -for a short distance, then stopped and listened for sounds of -pursuit. He waited for some time and, convincing himself that -Sheriff Warburton had not believed a night pursuit worth while, set -his course for Geerusalem. From the distant camp came the thunder of -stamp mills grinding loose the yellow treasure from the clinging -pulp. A foraging coyote, miles off, yelped dismally. - -As he galloped on, Billy Gee laughed. Again he had outwitted the -doughty sheriff of San Buenaventura County. There was a reckless -pride in the thought. He felt the spur of hazard over the -achievement—an urge to do something rash for the mere pleasure of -doing it, to make those denizens of Soapweed Plains sit up and take -notice and marvel at his daringness. It was a consuming, impelling -fascination. - -He gazed up at the stars. It was a “large” night out, he told -himself, and he felt fit as a fiddle. Yes, sir, he would ride into -Geerusalem and give it the once over, before returning to Blue Mud -Spring and the faithful companionship of old Tinnemaha Pete. - -Anyway, he reflected complacently, he had arranged it so Tinnemaha -would get possession of the bonanza hill. Poor old Tinnemaha, his -one friend, had worked hard, slaved for what he had found. And they -were partners—partners of the richest ground in the district! In the -last two days they had uncovered a pay chute that the desertarian -vowed was rich beyond the conception of prospectordom. They would -sell the claims outright, fifty-fifty the money, and leave Soapweed -Plains forever. - -There were a lot of fairer and more congenial climes to which he -himself could go. Sheriff Warburton would never let him alone, would -never stop until he had tracked him down and headed him for the -penitentiary. And yet, he was going straight now, had been going -straight ever since that wonderful night in the Huntington hayloft, -when Dot had called him a “poor, wounded wild animal.” Funny how he -had needed just that one little bit of interest from a girl to make -him change. He had promised her and he had made good, thanks to that -grand old wheel horse Tinnemaha Pete, and that grandest little -mother who stuck to him heroically, though he had blighted her life -with heartaches. He had been such a no-account cur these last three -years. - -He reached the road, turned into it, and followed it, musing. He -recalled that his mother had written him that Dot was working on a -novel about Billy Gee. As he let his mind dwell on the thought, he -felt the blood warm in his veins. His heart beat faster. Yes, sir, -he decided, Dot must surely get an education—for was not an -education necessary to write books? He was pretty certain it was, -considering it was a painful piece of work for him to write so -common a thing as a letter. And there must be a girl in that novel. -Who was she? Did Billy Gee come wounded to the ranch, and was he -cared for by the girl friend of his mother? There was the arrival of -that persistent sheriff, Bob Warburton. And did the wonderful girl -hide the wounded bandit in her room? - -From speculating thus, he presently became possessed with the desire -to see Dot. He wanted to hear her voice again, those musical tones -of hers that he had never forgotten. His being craved for the pity -she poured out to him, her splendid sympathy for him, her -understanding of him. Besides, he knew he could give her so many -interesting sidelights into Billy Gee’s career, that he was sure she -could use to advantage in her novel. For instance, how he had risked -two trips to San Francisco to inquire after her; how he had called -on his mother one night, while Dot was asleep, and confessed his -love for the girl; how he had met his boyhood chum, Lex Sangerly, on -the branch-road line of survey a few days ago, and conversed with -him for half an hour without being recognized; how he was keeping -his promise—going the straight and narrow for her sake. - -The staccato sound of an open muffler in the distance back of him, -interrupted his trend of thought. He glanced over his shoulder and -saw the twin lights of an automobile coming from the direction of -the Huntington ranch. He was not certain whose car it was. Sangerly, -he knew, had driven toward Mirage at sundown, for he had been -watching from afar and had seen him go. He believed that the -oncoming car was the one which had stopped at the ranch while he was -making his escape. Doubtless Warburton, by some means or another, -had discovered the way he went and was seeking——No, that couldn’t be -it. More than likely, it was Warburton hurrying to camp to organize -a posse. That would be the average sheriff’s method of working; -never single-handed—always twenty to one, playing safe. - -He looked ahead. He had reached the mouth of Geerusalem Gulch. A -mile or so away, a few scattered lights twinkled, indicating the -outskirts of the settlement. The old rock shack, where he had -rescued Lennox from the Quintell gunmen, lay within pistol-shot -distance. It was a little too far off to make it unobserved, for it -just might be that the powerful headlights of the approaching -machine would reveal him. He could not afford to take a chance. - -Spurring out of the road, he steered for a thick patch of brush near -by. He brought his horse to a halt behind it, swung from the saddle, -and waited, screened by the heavy foliage. The machine came dashing -up the road. As it got abreast of the hiding place, it slowed down, -and the headlights were switched off. - -Mystified, Billy Gee crouched low to the ground, watching the -blue-black sky line, and gripped his revolver. Presently he heard -the crunch of gravel underfoot. He saw the shadowlike figure of a -man pass stealthily over the wash and vanish into the gloom. - -“That you, Mr. Quintell?” suddenly came the low voice of another -man, some distance away. - -A curse broke from the newcomer. “You damn boob! Are you trying to -advertise this thing? Come over here!” - -A short pause followed, broken only by the sound of footsteps -blundering over the rocky wash. - -Quintell spoke again: “Is it all right? Did you do exactly as I -said—the width of two claims?” - -“Yes, sir. But I’m not—I did the best I could about marking the -spots. It’s too dark to see, and a pile of stones might excite -suspicion. I was afraid to strike matches.” - -“Did you use up all the dust? How many spots are there?” - -“Twenty-two. Yes, I used it all. That ought to be enough for an -assay test, I’d imagine—taking a little from each, you understand. I -distributed it so as to lead one to conclude that the entire gulch -prospects.” - -“Let’s see one of the spots,” said Quintell curtly. “This business -has to go through without a hitch. The slightest hesitation would -mean failure. He’d become suspicious. You’ll have to go about the -job of picking the test gravel naturally. Make it appear that you’re -doing it haphazardly.” - -Billy Gee heard them moving about, and curious to ascertain more -concerning what he knew to be a deliberate “salting” of worthless -ground for the purpose of selling it to some tenderfoot, he crept -after them. Soon he had made his way to within a few yards of them. -They were fumbling among the boulders. The broker growled -impatiently and struck a match. He shielded it with his hands so -that the light flashed downward, showing a diminutive monument of -two rocks, one laid upon the other. The match went out. - -“That’ll do fine,” muttered Quintell. “They’re all like that, are -they? Now, as I said, Harrison, you’re to take charge of the -samples. I might not be able to get word to you to-morrow. Follow -the right of way, as near as possible. That’ll be the first test. -The other can be taken from any part of the gulch. I’m not dead sure -of this fellow, see? I found out this afternoon that he’s been -making inquiries about Jerome Liggs. It may be that he’s wise to the -strike and that he’s after the Huntington ranch, as a side issue. -Just because he’s a railroad man, don’t mean that he’d pass up a -bonanza, by any means.” - -“You saw Huntington, of course?” said Harrison. “I dare say you had -matters all your own way?” - -“I certainly did not—damn him! He laughed at me. I offered him ten -thousand for his brush ranch—think of that!—and he fussed and -giggled, and ended finally by telling me that his daughter and he -had agreed not to sell. I’ve seen the time when the old devil would -have sold his soul for a copper penny, if he could have jammed his -girl through college. He’s got a few beans, to-day, and—by the way, -Harrison, she’s a fancy skirt, and I hear she’s writing a novel with -your Uncle Dudley as one of the characters. Believe me, I’m dropping -in on her the very next trip to Frisco! Nothing like evincing -interest, you know. - -“At that, I might have put the screws to Huntington and forced the -sale, if it hadn’t been for Sheriff Warburton. He was there, the big -bonehead. He rambled in while I sat there, check book in hand, and -eyed me like something the cat dragged in. He hates me for fair. -Let’s get to camp. I’m starting the boys after Huntington. I’ve -given him his chance. Now he takes what he gets.” - -Billy Gee, listening, heard the two men moving off toward the car, -and followed them cautiously through the darkness. - -“The proper thing, sir,” agreed Harrison. “By the way, did you -ascertain if Lennox is stopping there?” - -“I’m not certain. That will be for Rankin to find out. But here’s -the situation, so far as Warburton and Huntington are concerned: As -I was going into the ranch, Billy Gee, the bandit—he’s back in the -country—was coming out. I don’t know what he was doing—talking to -Huntington, I imagine. Warburton was snooping around the house after -him and nailed me instead of him. The point is, we’ll circulate the -news that Billy Gee was staying at the ranch—hiding out, you -understand. In other words, we’ll frame Huntington, make him out the -outlaw’s friend, and the long hairs of the camp won’t make a cheep -at the action of a vigilance committee. If we work it smoothly, -we’ll have them with us. Here comes a machine. Quick! Run! Follow -me!” - -Speeding down the road from the direction of the settlement, the -lights of an automobile appeared, visible now and again over the -boulders and clumps of brush. Quintell and his secretary dashed for -their car, sprang in, and went careening off for camp. Billy Gee -stood and watched the two machines whirl by each other. He stood in -the grip of conflicting emotions. The broker’s insulting reference -to Dot had been sufficient in itself to whip him into a murderous -fury, but the very urge he had felt to kill the fellow on the spot -had been restrained by an overwhelming discovery which he had made a -moment before. - -Just now, he gazed vaguely through the night after the tail light -disappearing in the gloom of Geerusalem Gulch. Presently he tore his -eyes away from it to look at the other machine. It was approaching -at moderate speed, bouncing and swaying over the rough road. Of a -sudden, as it went bowling past him, a girl’s silvery laughter smote -his ears. The sound electrified him. He caught his breath, and his -body stiffened like steel. He thought he could make out the forms of -two women in the rear seat; the man driving wore the regulation -chauffeur’s cap. - -The machine whirled on, and for many minutes he stared after it, -until it was swallowed up in the darkness toward the Huntington -ranch. He roused himself finally. It must be _she_, and that was his -mother with her. But why had they come? His heart began singing -within him. He threw back his head and smiled up at the stars. It -was a “large” night out, sure enough; but there was nothing in -Geerusalem to attract him. - -Then his mind turned to what he had just overheard between Quintell -and Harrison, and a low whistle broke from him as he realized the -vast importance of the information he possessed. “This powerful -rogue, Jule Quintell, was preparing to sell salted ground to the -Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company. To rob that company—not -openly as he had done—but stealthily, perfidiously, under the guise -of fair dealing. To-night, Quintell proposed to crush Huntington -too, to drive Dot’s father out of the country—probably kill him, as -had been done to others. He wanted the Billy Geerusalem claims, did -he? So, Mister Quintell believed it would be as easy as all -that—simply a matter of taking over the ranch and ousting Tinnemaha -Pete and himself? After they had found this big bonanza, Quintell -intended grabbing it, eh?” - -He walked over to his horse presently and mounted. He was chuckling -harshly. He held Jule Quintell in the hollow of his hand. The one -menace now was Sheriff Warburton. Yes, Warburton was a menace, but -there was a way of winning him over, the only way. He turned his -horse about and went spurring off through the darkness for Blue Mud -Spring. - -That voice! That face he had glimpsed by the light of the match! - -“It’s a large night out, believe me!” he muttered grimly. - - -CHAPTER XIX—AN ENEMY IN THE RANKS - -This particular August evening was destined to be the most eventful -one in Lemuel Huntington’s life, for hardly had he recovered from -the shock occasioned by Billy Gee’s visit, ere he received a -glorious surprise—Dot’s unannounced arrival from San Francisco. She -came bounding into the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs, caught her -astonished father in an ecstatic embrace, stifled his ejaculations -with kisses, and told him breathlessly the reason for her return -home. Even Warburton, scowling and furious over the outlaw’s escape, -came in for his share of Dot’s effusiveness and forgot for the time -the responsibilities of his office. - -It appeared that Mrs. Liggs having received a letter from Tinnemaha -Pete, containing the disturbing news that Sheriff Warburton was -again in the neighborhood, presumably searching for her son, that -loyal little mother after consulting with Dot decided on returning -to Soapweed Plains and, regardless of Billy Gee’s intentions to see -that his old friend obtained ultimate possession of the new gold -strike, try to persuade him to leave the country and take up his -residence with her in the metropolis. Since the trip would not -occupy longer than a week, Dot had made up her mind to go along—so -Mrs. Liggs would not be lonesome, she had said. Though the truth -was, she felt a consuming desire to meet and talk again with this -romantic hero of her girlish dreams, to see how he looked and acted -in the full flush of health, to find out if he had forgotten that -tragic day of his advent at the ranch. She was curious to know how -he would treat her, what he would say to her, and she secretly told -herself that, once having met him, she could bring back with her -certain happy memories which would do much to make her studies at -the university more apparently worth while. Besides, there was the -novel she was writing around this knight of Soapweed Plains, without -knowing just exactly his character. - -But Dot said nothing of all this to her father. According to the -agreement she made with Mrs. Liggs, the girl simply told Lemuel that -the little old lady had some important business to transact in -Geerusalem, and that she, Dot, had taken advantage of the -opportunity to pay a visit home. She went on to say that Lemuel must -accompany them back to San Francisco. He must see the adorable -bungalow where she and Mrs. Liggs lived. Then he would have to spend -a day at the University of California, and—— Oh, he must hear what -she had written on her novel! - -She talked on breathlessly, recounting her adventures, plying him -with questions. Lemuel listened, open-mouthed, replying vaguely, his -eyes brilliant with admiration. She looked queenly and so thoroughly -refined, he thought, and she was prettier and far more vivacious -than he had ever seen her before. - -Once he leaned over and whispered into Sheriff Warburton’s ear: -“Bob, you notice them big words she’s slingin’? Hear ’em? That’s one -of ’em—conspicuously. That’s what edjucation does. Listen to that, -will you! Rattles ’em off, like nuthin’.” - -It was an epochal homecoming. Until after midnight, Dot regaled them -with incidents and painted glowing pictures of San Francisco for -them. Around one o’clock, Sheriff Warburton suddenly recalled that -the unexpected arrival of the two women robbed him of his chances of -a bed for the night. - -Reluctantly he struck out for his own blankets at Blue Mud Spring, -getting a little comfort out of the thought that, although Billy Gee -had eluded him, he would be able to grill Tinnemaha Pete on the -habits and the probable whereabouts of the bandit the first thing in -the morning. None the less gratifying was the fact that Mrs. Liggs -was back in the district, where he could reach her when he needed -her. Why had she returned, he wondered? Unquestionably, her presence -had to do with Billy Gee. But what? Well, no matter. He’d force it -out of Tinnemaha Pete. The old fellow would give him a -straightforward story, or go to jail. Too bad, but he, Warburton, -had to do his duty. - -However, when Sheriff Warburton reached Blue Mud Spring, the camp -fire was ashes, stone cold, and Tinnemaha Pete and his pair of -burros were gone. Warburton looked back undecidedly through the -gloom of the cool desert night in the direction of the Huntington -ranch. After an interval, he dismounted, unsaddled his mule, spread -out his blankets on the ground, and turned in, cursing. Billy Gee -had outwitted him a second time. The third time was a charm, he told -himself as he dropped off to sleep. - - -Lex Sangerly, however, was not so fortunate as Warburton. He could -not compose himself to rest. Shortly after the sheriff left the -ranch, he had driven in from his trip to the railroad construction -camp and found Lemuel waiting up for him, entertaining Lennox with a -detailed account of Billy Gee’s career of crime. After relating to -Lex the stirring events of the night, including the unannounced -arrival of Dot and Mrs. Liggs, the rancher concluded with a -dissertation on the virtues of education as manifested by the ease -with which his daughter handled words, that he proudly declared were -“jaw-breakers” of an unusual type. - -Just now, Lex lay in Lemuel’s bed and tossed about nervously in the -grip of disturbing thoughts. From the parlor lounge across the hall -came sonorous evidence of Huntington’s blissful state of mind, -rumbling rhythmically through the house. The night was tomblike. - -Lex rehearsed again and again the talk he had had that afternoon -with Jule Quintell, and on the heels of this there paraded before -his mind’s eye the damaging information he had gathered against the -broker from confidential sources in Geerusalem. These had -substantiated all that he had heard heretofore, and briefly, went to -describe Quintell as a tricky, unscrupulous wildcatter, associated -with a coterie of other like gentry, polished crooks all, whose sole -aim was to fleece the unwary, and who exercised their power in camp -by their manipulation of the ruthless “stingaree” element and -control of the civil authorities. - -This meant to Lex nothing less than that Quintell and his -placer-claim partners were banded together to make the Mohave & -Southwestern Company pay heavily for the privilege of laying its -tracks across their ground. In other words, the broker’s reference -to fabulous gold-bearing gravel existing in Geerusalem Gulch was -true, but owing to the fact only that the ground had been salted to -show the existence of gold. He had heard of many cases where -worthless mines had been sold by the employment of such tactics. Why -not in this instance? He was suspicious of the whole matter, and had -there been another likely approach into the camp, he would have -urged abandonment of the gulch route. But there was not. - -The Quintell forces held the gates of Geerusalem, as it were. Though -his surmise might be correct that they were faking their -representations to make his company meet their demands, how could he -prove it? How could he find out that they had salted those claims? -They had doubtless done it cunningly, secretly, for proof of such an -act laid them liable to arrest and prosecution. - -Complicating the situation still more was the telegram he had -received that same day from his father, directing that negotiations -with Quintell be hastened, and details as to terms wired at the -earliest possible moment. Quite the contrary, it seemed as if the -broker was sparring for time. He had stated that the valuation of -the ground to be covered by the right of way must be determined by -the content of gold per cubic yard of gravel occupied by the -roadbed. This meant assaying the gulch, and assaying took time. And -it followed that the richer the ground, the greater would be the -price demanded. Lex sensed the scheme and writhed at the realization -that he was powerless to frustrate it. The mining laws of California -favored the owner who could show mineral in paying quantities. - -His gloomy reflections were startlingly interrupted by a violent -pounding on the front door. Of a sudden, the silent night roared out -with a bedlam of men’s voices. From the rear of the house came the -crack of a revolver, the crash of glass from one of the kitchen -windows, Lennox’s terrified cry. - -Lex sprang out of bed, pulled a curtain aside, and peered into the -darkness. The porch was jammed with men. He could hear the hurried -tramp of boots on the driveway leading to the barn, the blows of an -ax wielded on the barn door, breaking its padlock. The pounding at -the front of the house was resumed, accompanied by kicks. - -“Huntington, open up or we’ll bust her in!” shouted a man, with an -oath. - -Lex groped about for matches and lighted a lamp. “Hold on there a -minute!” he yelled back. He began hurrying into his clothes. A -strange nervousness seized him. Vigilantes—a mob—had crept up and -surrounded the place. They had come to exact some tribute, to wreak -vengeance, to enforce summary justice. Which, and on whom? He heard -Dot’s voice in the hall, vibrant and fearless. - -“What do you want?” - -“Bust down the door!” chorused the crowd. - -“We want the man who’s been befriending Billy Gee,” cried the first -speaker. “Are you opening this door or do we break it in?” - -At this juncture Lex stepped into the hall. Lemuel stood half -dressed, pale with fright, holding a candle in one trembling hand. -Dot, clad in a dressing gown, her thick, wavy hair tumbled -charmingly over her shoulders, her eyes glinting with a strange -fire, was standing before the door, firmly gripping a six-shooter. -Huddled up against the wall, some distance back, was Mrs. Liggs -wringing her thin hands distractedly. - -“The man who tries to come in here, dies! Do you understand that?” -called out the girl in harsh tones. - -A wild jeer went up. The mob howled for action, and heavy shoulders -started heaving against the panels. Dot fired. The bullet tore -through the lintel, whined spitefully over the heads of the crowd. - -“Atta boy! Now, altogether! Get the back door, Shorty!” bellowed the -leader. - -The front door bulged and creaked under a second attack, and again -Dot fired. A howl of rage broke from one of the men. There was a mad -scramble out of range. - -“Smoke ’em out! Smoke ’em out!” rose the furious cry. - -“Good Lord! They’re goin’ to burn down the house,” wailed Lemuel -hysterically. - -“Say, men!” shouted Lex. “There’s some mistake. This is Sangerly of -the Mohave & Southwestern speaking. I’ll vouch for Mr. Huntington. -He’s never had any friendly relations with this outlaw——” - -“Is that so, Sangerly?” sneered the leader of the mob. “Well, you’re -not such a wise guy as you think you are. Huntington was -entertaining Billy Gee here this evening. He’s been hanging out at -this ranch right along. Say, Huntington, are you delivering yourself -up, or do we burn you out?” - -Lennox, listening fearfully from his cot in the little room off the -kitchen, recognized the speaker as Big George Rankin, czar of -Geerusalem’s underworld. - -“Why, that’s ridiculous,” cried Lex. “Mr. Huntington captured Billy -Gee and turned him over to the authorities——” - -The roar of voices which had ceased during the brief parley, rose -again now, violent and menacing. - -“It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I ain’t bin friends with the measly skunk,” -moaned Lemuel. Mrs. Liggs was staring at him, in a dumb, bewildered -way. - -Dot still watched the door. Her eyes were glittering dangerously, -her whole manner betokening cool, desperate determination. Lex, -unused to frontier crises of this kind, had left his revolver in his -room. He now ran in to get it and found that the men on the porch -were trying the windows. He had barely discovered this fact, when a -revolver ripped suddenly down through the panes, showering him with -glass. At the same instant, he heard the kitchen door fall in with a -crash. Rushing back into the hall, he was just in time to come under -a bristling array of leveled guns in the hands of bandanna-masked -men, trained on the Huntington household. - -In a trice, Dot was disarmed and Lemuel hurled into his room to -dress. The place was quickly overrun by the mob, rummaging and -ransacking bureaus, closets, trunks. Even the cupboard was swept -clean. To Lex, it seemed as if they went about their work with a -thoroughness that was almost painstakingly vicious. It was as if -they were following out some plan to render the house untenantable, -to strip its owner of his belongings. - -Rankin, big and burly, his cruel eyes fiery over his red mask, -stopped before Dot. - -“You be on your way out of the country before morning, kid! Get me?” -he growled. “And take this old dame along with you,” indicating the -half-fainting Mrs. Liggs whom the girl held in her arms. “Get out -and stay out!” He turned to Lex. “As for you, Mr. Sangerly, you’ve -got a room in the Miners’ Hotel. See that you occupy it, if you’re -not looking for a coat of tar. Outside, gang, and clean up the -works!” - -The majority of the mob went trooping away in obedience to the -command, and presently Lex heard sounds which proclaimed the -destruction of the outbuildings, coupled with the frantic clamor of -the occupants of coop and sty. - -A man hurried in from the kitchen and beckoned Rankin to one side. -“Lennox’s layin’ in there with a busted leg,” he whispered. - -“Hell he is! Well, you know your orders, Shorty. Bump him off, but -wait till we leave, see? Tell Logan to help you. Make a good job of -it.” - -A number of men dragged Lemuel from his room. He was in a state of -collapse. Dot relinquished Mrs. Liggs to Lex, and rushing forward, -threw her arms around her father’s neck, begging, pleading -hysterically with Rankin, to no purpose. Sangerly began an -impassioned appeal also, and received a brutal blow in the face for -his interference. - -Out through the front door they hustled Lemuel. They bundled him on -a horse and set a guard over him, while Rankin rounded up his gang -preparatory to departing. At last, with a parting six-shooter volley -into the air and a chorus of wild shouts, the mob spurred away. The -first faint shafts of light were beginning to silver the eastern -sky. Soapweed Plains had never seemed so tragically silent, so -filled with woe and frightful foreboding. - -Out on the front porch, Lex stood holding Mrs. Liggs. The little old -lady was moaning pitifully, clutching Dot’s hand in her own -trembling one. The girl was, for the moment, stricken dumb by the -suddenness of it all—the destruction of the ranch, the bold -abduction of her father, horror over his possible fate at the hands -of that lawless crowd. Then she roused herself and darted into the -house. The next instant she reappeared, hatted and cloaked, and sped -down the steps and along the walk leading to the rear of the -premises. Alarmed at her action, Lex helped Mrs. Liggs to a porch -chair and hurried after her. He overtook her as she was scrambling -through the wire fence into the field. - -“Miss Huntington, where are you going?” he panted. - -“I’m following them. Please help me catch a horse!” she cried -wildly. “Oh, the beasts! The beasts! They’re——” She broke off and -listened frantically into the night. “Hear them? They’re taking him -toward camp, but there is a trail branching off. They’re going that -way. I heard one of them say they intend to set him afoot in Lone -Mountain Pass. He’ll die out there. Quick! Mr. Sangerly, I——” - -“My car,” he burst out. “If they haven’t destroyed it—tampered with -it.” He grasped her arm, and together they raced for the roadster -standing to one side of the driveway. “But we ought to run into camp -and report the matter to the authorities. We can’t hope to do -anything alone, Miss Huntington. It would be madness to oppose -them,” he argued, as they sprang into the machine. - -By a streak of good fortune—which that arch-plotter Jule Quintell -could have easily explained, considering that he felt confident of -putting over the right of way deal—the night riders had left the -roadster severely alone. - -Dot made no reply, and Lex started turning the roadster around in -the wide space of yard. At this juncture, two shots rang out inside -the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs’ terrified scream from the front -porch. A hoarse cry broke from Lex. He brought the car to a sudden -halt. - -“My God—Lennox! I’d forgotten him. They’ve killed——” - -There was a sound of blundering footfalls across the bare kitchen -floor. The next instant, a man staggered out of the back door, -toppled down the steps, and pitched headlong to the ground, in the -full glare of the headlights. Blood was issuing from his mouth. - -Then, while Dot and Lex gazed horrified at the prostrate form, a -shriveled-up little figure appeared in the kitchen door, clutching a -revolver in one bony hand. It was Tinnemaha Pete. - -“That you, Spangaree?” he cackled excitedly at the roadster. “Son of -a gun! Got ’em both—first pop. They was goin’ to drill Mr. Lummox, -an’ I dropped ’em. Poorty as ye please. First pop. Son of a gun! -Ain’t killed a man afore, either. That’s one of ’em. First pop, -Spangaree. Agatha! Looket, Agatha——” He went trotting through the -house, calling to Mrs. Liggs. - -Dot, staring at the dead man, shivered. - -Lex got the roadster under way. It sped out of the driveway and into -the road, gathering speed; plunging and swaying along, the sand -rattling like machine-gun fire against the under side of the -fenders. The girl, wide-eyed, her face bloodless, drawn with fear, -watched in awful suspense for sight of the mob. - -“We’d better drive to camp, Miss Huntington, and get out the -constable—have him lead a posse after them. It’s the safest course, -all around,” said Lex presently. - -A sob broke from her. “Oh, what terrible thing are they going to -do!” she cried in anguish. “We’ll have to save him. Can’t you see? -We can’t leave him. It’ll take time to get help. Oh, Mr. Sangerly——” - -“It’s a terrible situation, I know,” he interrupted gently; “but you -must understand that these ruffians will hesitate at nothing. When -they would plan to murder poor Lennox, lying in bed, unable to -defend himself, what consideration would they give us?” - -“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” she moaned. “Perhaps you’re right. -I can’t think clearly. Merciful Father, have pity on——” She broke -off, glaring intently ahead. “There they are! There they are!” - -As she spoke, the galloping mass of the night riders came into view. -The roadster bore down on it rapidly, and the powerful rays of the -headlights growing brighter and brighter, startled the horses. Those -in the rear began bolting in fright, swerving sharply, unmanageable -for the instant. But that instant proved sufficient in which to -throw the entire body into confusion. It split, scattering to either -side of the road, and Lex, a cold hand clutching his heart, steered -the car into the breach, stepping on the gas as he did so. - -A deafening roar went up from the cavalcade. A hail of bullets -riddled the radiator. Racing alongside, several of the riders thrust -their six-shooters down on Lex and the girl, commanding a halt. Dot -got a fleeting glimpse of her father, bareheaded, his face ashen -with terror. He sat astride a horse, his hands tied behind him. Lex -brought the machine to a stop, and the mob surrounded it. - -“Out of that buzz wagon, partner!” cried Big George Rankin, spurring -forward. “It seems to me you’re itching for that coat of tar I -promised you. You can’t monkey with a law-and-order bunch in these -parts without getting your feet wet. Kid,” addressing Dot, “you hop -out of there, too. I suppose, Mr. Sangerly, you were on your way to -spread the alarm, eh? Well, we’ll attend to you before we do -anything else. You’re a pretty wise bird—in Los Angeles,” he added -significantly. - -The whole troop was by now drawn around the roadster—a grim company, -surely, what with their grotesque, blood-red handkerchief masks and -attitude of lawless abandon. Lex and Dot stood on the ground near -the roadster. The girl was weeping audibly, gazing with distracted -eyes through the press of horsemen for sight of Lemuel. - -“Father!” she cried again and again, her agonized voice rising above -the chorus of menacing suggestions as to what should be done with -the meddlers of the night’s business. But she got no answer to her -passionate cry. - -Day was breaking fast, as is usual on the Southwestern deserts. -Soapweed Plains lay cold and gray and mysterious to the eye, its -vast stretches of brush and sand resembling some gigantic -crazy-quilted design. The Geerusalem Hills rose near at hand, -looking like a great dab of mixed paint—a vividly mineralized pile -of granite and porphyritic rock. - -Rankin and two other men were conversing in low animated tones, -trying to arrive at some decision concerning the disposal of Dot and -Lex. They were not agreeing. - -Suddenly a shot rang out from beyond the circle, followed by the -gurgling cry of a man. There was a wild scamper of hoofs, then the -sharp crack of a quirt across a horse’s withers. A volley screamed -over the roadster. The riders clustered around it hesitated an -instant. Another volley scattered them like chaff, dropping three of -their number. This way and that they dashed madly, every man for -himself. Rankin roared out a command, hurling a string of oaths -after them. - -“If you’re lookin’ for Billy Gee, here he is. Come take him! Come -on, you brave wallopers! You—Rankin!” shouted a lone horseman, -sitting his mount some distance away. He fired, and the leader’s hat -went sailing off his head. Emptying his revolver wildly at the -other, Rankin, fuming with rage, swung his horse about and sped -after his followers. - -A wild thrill swept Dot. She stared in blank amazement at the erect -slim figure of their rescuer. Far behind him, racing across the -plains like mad, went another rider, her father, and Billy Gee, the -outlaw, the hero of her romantic dreams, was covering his retreat, -holding in nervous indecision two score ruffians who faltered at the -mere mention of that magic name, which stood for open defiance of -law! She knew that Billy Gee must have been a member of that mob, -that he had joined it with the express purpose of liberating her -father at the first opportunity. - -While she gazed at him these things flashed through her mind; and -into her bosom came an ecstasy, sweeter than any she had ever known. -Out there in the cold gray dawn of Soapweed Plains, was the man she -loved, alone, dauntlessly challenging a heavily armed cavalcade that -had visited its wrath on the Huntington home because of him, a -cowardly crew whom he had dispersed with a dozen shots! - -On and on, dashed Lemuel, horse and rider growing smaller and -smaller in the distance. The enemy, under Rankin’s repeated abuse -and threats, had drawn rein a few hundred yards away. It began a -cautious approach, firing as it came. Billy Gee waited. Dot, -becoming alarmed at his inactivity, now noticed that, besides being -out of revolver range, he gripped a rifle. In that he had a decided -advantage—one which he proceeded to put to use with demoralizing -effect. - -He brought up the weapon suddenly. There was a flash, and one of the -horsemen slumped in the saddle. Again and again the rifle cracked. -The morale of the mob ebbed in the face of that unerring -marksmanship. The outlaw reloaded, and with something of that -dare-devil spirit which had made him the terror of the region, dug -spurs to his horse and charged straight for the nearest group of -riders, firing with deadly precision as he rode. The group made to -stand its ground, but the very fact that this advancing foe was the -dreaded bandit of the Mohave, whose past death-defying exploits had -set them agog with awe and wonder, proved too much for their vaunted -temerity. They whirled about in a panic, and after them went the -remaining members of the band, the rifle bullets whining in their -ears. - -Billy Gee reined in his horse and watched the rout he had caused. -Then the very thing he could have predicted came to pass. The -horsemen stopped a quarter of a mile off, congregated to talk over a -plan of action. Rankin was not for giving up. Billy could hear him -bellowing out commands, urging his fellows with curse and taunt back -to the attack and the extermination of the outlaw. - - -CHAPTER XX—GEERUSALEM STIRS - -Billy Gee galloped up to the roadster. Dot and Lex had been standing -back of it, watching in silence the ridiculous debacle of the -Quintell mob caused by this lone knight of the road. The outlaw -jerked his horse to a stop before the two, and glanced first at Lex, -then at the girl. He smiled at her, an odd, expectant light in his -eyes, and swept off his hat cavalierly. - -“Yore father is headin’ for Blue Mud Spring, Miss Huntington. -Warburton is campin’ there, as you mebby know. I reckon he’ll be -safer.” He spoke in low, gentle tones. - -She regarded him for a moment with an eagerness that she could not -hide. The early morning light was on his face, its subtle rosiness -softening it, showing a lingering loneliness and sympathy in the -flashing eyes, a boyishness of feature, a charming recklessness of -expression. He sat his horse gracefully, his figure garbed in -whipcord, flowing white chaps covering his legs, his hat a splendid -huge thing of gray felt, while about his neck hung the bandanna -handkerchief that had recently served him as a mask. - -She blushed, approval and admiration in her eyes, and held out her -hand to him. - -“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Billy Gee,” she said -simply, a quiver in her voice. - -“You don’t never need to, Dot. I owe you a bigger favor, you -reckillect. I jest happened to fall in with the gang as it was -ridin’ out here, an’ heerd what they were goin’ to do. But I’d not -have got away with it, if you hadn’t come along in yore auto, Mr. -Sangerly—that is, not easy,” he added, with a look at Lex. “Of -course, you know this here’s Quintell’s doin’s. He’s payin’ pretty -for it, let me tell you.” - -Dot was gazing fixedly at him, a wistful light in her eyes that her -heavy lashes concealed. - -“Are you sure of that—that Quintell is at the bottom of this thing?” -asked Lex, watching the other narrowly. - -“Positive. All that talk about Huntington hiding me out was a bluff. -They framed it so’s to git hold of him. I’m mighty glad Warburton’s -in the country.” - -Sangerly smiled. “I also want to thank you for what you’ve done for -us, Billy Gee.” He added: “And for leaving our trains alone.” - -“A man’ll do a thing right along, Mr. Sangerly, an’ his own mother -won’t be able to change him. Then he jest nacherly changes.” He said -this soberly, throwing a glance at the distant horsemen as he spoke. - -They had begun to ride forward again slowly, in open formation, -scattering to the flanks as they came, in a wide enveloping movement -calculated to get the bandit in a crossfire that would make his -escape impossible. - -Dot noted the maneuver and looked at Billy Gee, mute entreaty in her -eyes. He met her gaze and laughed easily. - -“You an’ Mr. Sangerly better wait till they start chasin’ me, then -go on into camp an’ arrange to quit the ranch. ’Tain’t safe to live -there,” he said, as he gathered up the reins. “Quintell aims to -drive you out of the deestrict, but he won’t. An’ say, Sangerly! I -wisht you’d visit him to-night. How about eight o’clock? I want you -to hear somepn for yoreself. There’s stick-up men who don’t use a -gun like yours truly. Good-by, Dot! I want powerful much to have a -long chat with you, some day. Did you see where Jerome Liggs struck -it rich?” With a glance at Lex, he smiled at Dot, swept off his hat -and went galloping away. - -Wild yells broke from the advancing vigilantes. Their revolvers -began to roar, and with quirt and spur they quickened their speed in -pursuit of their quarry. Sangerly and Dot crouched down behind the -roadster to avoid the hail of bullets that now screamed around them. -Presently the cavalcade swept by, leaving a cloud of dust behind -them, hanging motionless on the still morning air. Lashing their -animals madly, they tore away across the plains, bending every -energy to apprehend and vent their vengeance on the man who -single-handed had frustrated their sinister plans. - -It was now quite light, the eastern horizon glowing red and orange -with the first shafts of the invisible sun. - -Billy Gee headed straight for the Huntington ranch. His wiry little -horse, trained to just such desperate get-aways as this, swept over -the ground like the wind. Dot, her small hands clenched, her face -flushing and paling by turns with what Lex believed was anxiety, -watched the pursuit in silence. Now and again, through a rift in the -cloud of dust, she caught sight of the lone rider. He sat his horse -with the grace of a fleeing centaur, and she noticed that he was -outdistancing his pursuers by degrees—saving his own animal, she -thought. Once she saw him rise in his stirrups and wave his hat. She -wrenched a white scarf she wore around her neck and waved back. -After that, he kept gaining and gaining rapidly. - -“What a wonderful horse!” exclaimed Lex, breaking a long silence. -“Look! He’s gone past the ranch. They’ve given up. See? They’ve -stopped. I’ve never seen such a remarkable exhibition of pluck in -all my life, Miss Huntington. He’s an extraordinary bandit.” - -Billy Gee, half a mile in the lead of the cavalcade, flashed by the -Huntington gate. His mother and Tinnemaha Pete had witnessed the -race. They stood just inside the fence, trembling, breathless. - -“Jerome, my darling!” cried Mrs. Liggs wildly. - -“I’m all right, honey,” Billy Gee called back, throwing her a smile. -“I’ve headed Huntington for Blue Mud Spring. Dot an’ Sangerly got -by. See you soon.” - -“The sheriff—look out for that pesky critter, Warburton!” shrilled -Tinnemaha Pete. “He’s lookin’ for you. Pop it to him, d’you hear! -Pop it to him——” - -“Jerome—the sheriff!” screamed Mrs. Liggs. - -Billy Gee, out of hearing, nodded reassuringly, wondering what they -had said. - -A quarter of a mile beyond the ranch, he pulled his horse down to a -walk. Pursuit had been abandoned. He laughed, sitting sidelong in -the saddle, gazing back. Suddenly, as if in his very ear, a man’s -voice rang out, saying: - -“I got a bead on yore heart, Billy. Don’t look around. I don’t want -to have to kill you, Billy.” - -His horse was brought to a stop, and an expert hand reached up and -disarmed him. - -“Hullo Bob! Much obliged for bein’ so consid’rate,” said the outlaw, -his head averted. “You’re jest the man I want to see.” - -“I’ll bet I am,” chuckled Sheriff Warburton grimly. “Le’s see yore -hands! All set, now.” He snapped the handcuffs on his prisoner. - -Billy Gee turned and looked at his captor. He was afoot. Some -distance off, his mule stood partially hidden by a clump of brush. - -“If you don’t figger on losin’ me, we better start. That roarin’ -layout is the Quintell bunch. They’re after me. They all but -dynamited the Huntington place last night,” said Billy Gee evenly. - -Warburton scowled. “What’s this you’re givin’ me?” - -He glanced toward the ranch and made out the tiny figure of Mrs. -Liggs standing in the garden, her face buried in her hands, and the -scarecrow one of old Tinnemaha Pete, arms waving above his head, -raging about in insane fashion. - - -The mob had collected and, slouching in its saddles, listened to Big -George Rankin’s reasons why the chase should not be continued. -Daylight had brought the leader of Geerusalem’s underworld face to -face with the gravity of the night’s activity. Masked men were -likely to fall into the toils of the law, even in so lawless a -locality as this. Rankin did not relish being identified with the -Huntington job. He had too much to lose. He did not care to take any -unnecessary risks. What he told his confederates, however, was that -they would be wasting time trying to track down an outlaw who, -besides riding superior horseflesh, knew every square foot of the -vast Mohave Desert. - -At last, they started on their return to camp, tired, hungry, in no -genial mood. Their raid had in great measure been for naught. Their -plans to intimidate Lemuel Huntington into leaving the country, had -been frustrated by the unexpected interference of Billy Gee. They -had to confront Jule Quintell and his clique and admit miscarriage -of those plans. - -From discussing the matter among themselves, their bitterness toward -Huntington, and every one who had to do with Huntington, increased. -Lex Sangerly, Dot, and Mrs. Liggs came under a new scheme of -persecution which they presently determined on, as they rode along. -They would raid the ranch again that night, declared Rankin, and -burn it to the ground, and they would take precautions that no Billy -Gee would be about to defeat their aims. It is not strange that, -with other more important matters in contemplation, the absence of -Shorty and Logan—delegated to kill Lennox—was not noted. In fact, -Shorty and Logan were not missed until late that afternoon. - - -For some reason that Lex Sangerly could not understand, it was with -manifest reluctance that Dot finally agreed to accompany him into -Geerusalem. She favored returning to the ranch, in the face of the -knowledge that they would have to pass the disgruntled night riders -approaching along the road. - -“Mrs. Liggs will be safe until we come back,” argued Lex, as they -went whirling away. “This fellow, Billy Gee, doesn’t seem like a man -who would harm a defenseless old lady. Wasn’t that the most -spectacular rescue, Miss Huntington?” - -“I am sure he wouldn’t harm her,” said Dot slowly. “He’s wonderful! -One man against forty cowardly curs. Didn’t I tell you in San -Francisco what an extraordinary person he was?” - -“He certainly isn’t what I’ve always pictured a bandit to be. He’s -got character in his face. A good eye. A rather likable fellow, I’d -say.” - -She looked at him. “You’re going to meet him to-night, Mr. Sangerly. -I know you’re going to admire Billy Gee hereafter. Hasn’t it struck -you as odd that he is trusting you? What assurance has he that you -won’t have him placed under arrest?” - -“My understanding was that I was to visit Quintell. I didn’t suppose -that I was to meet him there, also,” said Lex coldly. “Keeping an -appointment with a criminal, Miss Huntington, is not exactly——” - -“Mr. Sangerly, please don’t ask me how I know, but this meeting will -be to your interest. I am positive of it. I feel it, with a woman’s -intuition. Can’t you see that he is really risking his liberty so -that you may hear something for yourself? That’s just what he said. -He knows who you are—all about you. And you must bear in mind that -there have been no more holdups on the Mohave & Southwestern. He has -reformed. Please don’t smile. He has. I want to ask this favor of -you: Meet him to-night, as you would keep any appointment, but not -with an officer at your elbow. Will you do that?” - -She had spoken rapidly, a strange, eager, pleading note in her -voice. Her eyes, fixed on him, held an animated light, her cheeks -the faintest tint of red. They were just turning into Geerusalem -Gulch, the rays of the rising sun silvering the windows of the camp -a mile away. - -For a long moment, Lex stared at her, searching her pretty face. -Then he broke into a laugh. - -“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were—well, an ardent admirer -of this far-famed train robber, and that would be putting it mildly. -But your arguments are reasonable. I’ll do it. I promise to meet him -under those conditions—this one time. You appear to know a lot about -Billy Gee, don’t you, Miss Huntington?” he added curiously. - -“I don’t mind confessing to you that I do,” she admitted in a naïve -way that quite amazed him. “I can tell you that your road will never -be robbed again by him.” - -“Are you serious about that?” he asked. “It seems to me that a young -woman of your standing wouldn’t be in a position to——” - -“I was never more serious in my life, Mr. Sangerly, and as far as -position is concerned, there are no social planes in this great land -of sun, sand and silence. We are all human beings, some more -fortunate than others, but no better under the skin.” - -She met his look with a candor that caused him to gaze ahead, -frowning at the road. There was a short silence. - -“It—it isn’t possible that you have—influenced him?” he said -hesitatingly, after a little. - -She shook her head. “I wouldn’t just call it that. I told you how he -hid the twenty thousand dollars in my bureau drawer, unknown to me? -Well, during the talk I had with him, I asked him if he would do -something to repay me for taking care of him. He replied that he -would—anything. And I exacted his promise that he would quit leading -the life of a bandit. It was all done in one thrilling moment—one -midnight. Posses were scouring the country for him at the time. He -promised me, as you’ve just promised me. He’s made good. I think -he’s magnificent.” - -As Lex brought the roadster to a stop before the Miners’ Hotel, he -said: “By the way, Billy Gee mentioned Jerome Liggs as though he -knew him. Does he happen to be a relative of Mrs. Liggs? She had a -son——” - -“He is, and I know him.” She regarded Lex intently as she spoke. - -“But that was her son’s name. We were kids together—chums.” - -“It is he,” she said slowly. - -Lex sat bolt upright, forgetting to clamber out of the roadster. -Just then he was oblivious of the fact that a crowd was gathering on -the sidewalk, and that Dot was the object of many eyes. - -“Why, she told me he was dead!” he burst out. “I saw in the paper -yesterday that he struck it rich. Where is he——” - -The increasing buzz of voices around him made him glance up. He saw -the throng of staring men. They packed the sidewalk, spilled into -the street, partly surrounding the machine. There was something -inimical in their manner, a bold severity in their scrutiny of Dot. -Lex’s sudden display of astonishment and pleasure passed at sight of -that menacing crowd. He sprang out of the car and threw open the -door for the girl. - -The hostility in the faces of the men had not been lost on Dot. It -struck her instantly that this was not the elemental type of ruffian -who had wrecked her home some hours before. These grim accusing -individuals were substantial business men—the commercial backbone of -Geerusalem. She grew pale. - -Clinging to Lex’s arm, she entered the hotel, the crowd parting to -let them pass. Once inside and with Mr. Merriman, the proprietor, -hurrying toward them, she breathed easier. He beckoned them into a -little writing room that adjoined the office. - -“Is Mr. Huntington in camp?” he asked in low, excited tones. - -Dot shook her head. “Get word to him not to show up here—to keep -away,” he went on rapidly. “The report has got around that he’s been -hiding Billy Gee, the outlaw. He is accused of being an accomplice, -of being the relative or friend that the bandit was generally -supposed to have on the plains. The camp is furious—ready to riot. -They held a mass meeting last night and decided to——” - -“That’s ridiculous, Mr. Merriman. It’s persecution,” cried Lex. “I -just came from the ranch with Miss Huntington. I’ve been staying -there. I know what I’m talking about. The report is a lie. Who -circulated it?” - -“I don’t know. But Jule Quintell acted as chairman of the meeting -and did most of the speaking. Whether it’s true or not, the camp -believes it. They’re backing Quintell to a man. They won’t stop at -anything——” - -“The beast!” broke in Dot, her eyes fiery with suppressed rage. “He -sent a gang of his hoodlums out to our home last night, and they all -but destroyed it, Mr. Merriman.” She turned to Sangerly. “Would you -please send a machine out after Mrs. Liggs? We must not leave her -alone out there. Tinnemaha Pete can look after—you know, the sick -man. And do try to reach Sheriff Warburton at Blue Mud Spring. Mr. -Merriman, have you a messenger we can trust? I’m going to have -Quintell arrested.” - - -CHAPTER XXI—THE LAW AND THE LAWLESS - -When Lex was gone, Dot gave the sympathetic hotel man the details of -the raid on the ranch, omitting nothing except the fact of her -father’s abduction and subsequent rescue; for she believed it unwise -at this time when Lemuel was being accused of having friendly -relations with Billy Gee, to mention the important part—heroic and -praiseworthy though it was—the latter had played in the night’s -events. She was positive that the raiders themselves would keep -silent on the matter, if for no other reason than to cover up the -lawlessness of their own act. - -“But have you any proof that Quintell is at the bottom of this -persecution, Dot?” asked Merriman, when she concluded. - -“No. Not direct proof, but——” - -“In that case, I wouldn’t make any rash move. If you have him -arrested, it will simply aggravate the situation. You’d be worse off -for it. Right now, Quintell is a power in Geerusalem. He is the new -president of the Mining Exchange, besides. His clique is in absolute -control. You couldn’t get a person to believe your charges. I’d -advise you to wait—talk it over with Warburton first.” - -“But, Mr. Merriman, this whole thing is a plot to ruin us,” cried -the girl. “I don’t know why. We have never had dealings with the -people of this camp, except to patronize the stores, and all our -bills are paid. In the light of what happened last night, would you -have us fold our hands and let them do what they seem bent on -doing—force us to leave the country?” - -Merriman patted her shoulder paternally. “I’m sure it’s not as bad -as all that, Dot,” he said with a smile. “Things will adjust -themselves, I know. Right now, the prudent course to pursue is to -say nothing and see that your father remains away for a while.” - -Dot gazed significantly at him a moment, then she said: “Quintell -was out to see father early last evening. He wanted to buy the -ranch. He offered better than thirty dollars an acre—ten thousand -dollars. Would you pay that much for the Huntington ranch, Mr. -Merriman, just as it stands?” - -The man’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He whistled softly and -replied, with a shrewd nod of his head: “So that’s it! I think I see -the scheme, Dot—and it is a scheme. Something about your father’s -ranch has made it valuable to Jule. And it’s mineral—nothing less. -I’d say it was pretty good, because he never bothers with anything -that isn’t pretty good. He’s liable to go the limit, Dot. Perhaps I -shouldn’t say it, but he can be mighty dirty in his methods.” - -“You might be right, but I don’t think he wants the ranch for the -mineral that may be on it,” said the girl. “I am sure he has some -other object. Did you ever hear talk of a resort, to be established -a few miles out of camp?” - -“Do you mean a summer resort?” - -“Yes, something on that order.” - -He smiled. “I was discussing with Harrison, Quintell’s secretary, -some weeks ago, the possibility of starting such an enterprise. He -seemed interested—enthusiastic, I might say. I believe we mentioned -your father’s ranch as one of the sites. Of course, you understand, -we were just speculating. While a resort would be a veritable mint -once it got going, the initial investment would be prohibitive so -far as I’m concerned. Why do you ask?” - -Dot’s eyes glowed on him. “Mr. Merriman, if I entertained any doubts -as to whether Quintell had a hand in last night’s outrage, you have -dispelled them,” she said. Thereupon, she related to him the -particulars of Dick Lennox’s visit to her and Lemuel at the Golden -West Hotel in San Francisco. - -They were still talking when Lex returned. He announced that he had -dispatched a machine to bring Mrs. Liggs to camp, and instructed the -driver to tell Warburton—in the event the latter was at the -ranch—that Dot wished to see him immediately. Moreover, he had sent -a cowboy riding for Blue Mud Springs, with a letter counseling -Lemuel to remain in hiding, as well as requesting Warburton’s -presence in Geerusalem. - -While Dot and Lex were at breakfast in the hotel dining room, six -horsemen rode singly out of camp. They were armed. They were old in -the game of hip-shooting—practiced in the grim art of killing. They -could keep a can dancing in midair as long as loaded six-shooters -held out. In the pocket of each was a neat little roll of bills, -slipped there by Jule Quintell’s right bower, Harrison. Their -instructions were to seize the hill on the Huntington ranch, destroy -the location monuments and notices on what were known as the Billy -Geerusalem group of claims—locators, Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome -Liggs—and relocate over their own signatures. - -Reposing in Quintell’s safe in the Broker’s Exchange Building were -deeds signed in advance by the six, which transferred what they -intended to get possession of to the boss of Geerusalem and his -associates. The deep motive beneath this move, however, was the -death of Jerome Liggs and Tinnemaha Pete. That Dot’s father escaped -a similar sentence was due, not entirely to Quintell’s hesitation to -take so rash a step, as to the fact that, after hearing the report -of the vigilantes’ work as given by Big George Rankin, the -broker—following a furious scene in his office—had arrived at the -conclusion that the havoc wrought at the ranch coupled with the -terror with which Huntington and his daughter must be now inspired, -sufficed to force them into a position to meet his terms for the -purchase of the ranch. - -But of his contemplated cold-blooded murder of the discoverers of -the rich Billy Geerusalem strike, Quintell said nothing to his -associates. Their putting away had nothing directly to do with this -obvious act of dispossession. As has been said, Huntington owned the -land on which the bonanza find had been made; the broker knew this -and, in consequence, realized only too well that legal right to it -must come from its owner, who, it must be remembered, had not the -remotest idea of the fabulous treasure buried in the bleak, solitary -hill west of his home. - -Meanwhile, Quintell was busy stirring up public sentiment in the -camp against Huntington. He had called a meeting the night before -and charged that Billy Gee, the outlaw, had been found in hiding on -the Huntington ranch. While he had not seen the bandit, Quintell -gave a graphic account of an exciting chase after that elusive -person, which had terminated when Sheriff Warburton mistook him for -Billy Gee in the darkness, and dragged him into the house, resulting -in the outlaw’s escape. - -His whole story was a clever network of lies, convincingly told, and -calculated to brand Dot’s father as an undesirable resident, if -nothing worse; one who was scarcely as honest as Billy Gee, since -Quintell made him appear as an accomplice who had been masquerading -for years in the rôle of a reputable, law-abiding rancher. Moreover, -he assailed Warburton by pointing to the latter’s friendship for -Huntington, and intimated that Billy Gee’s sensational get-away from -the sheriff, following Lemuel’s delivery of his prisoner to the -official, was framed for the purpose of getting the reward which, he -gave as his opinion, had been divided equally among the three. And -because Quintell had a smooth tongue and a way of putting things -over, Geerusalem believed his charges. - -At the appointed hour—ten o’clock—Lex Sangerly left Dot in the hotel -parlor and stepped over to Quintell’s office to accompany the broker -on an inspection tour of the Lucky Boy placer claims. He went with -reluctance, feeling more keenly than on the day previous his -suspicions of Quintell in regard to the right of way matter, to -which was added a profound indignation and rage against this -wildcatter who was, from all Lex could hear, the cause of the -Huntington raid. - -A few minutes after Lex’s departure, Mrs. Liggs and Sheriff -Warburton arrived in camp, and, as the result of a short talk he had -with Dot, Warburton prevailed on her to take no immediate action -looking to the arrest of Quintell, until he had investigated the -case. Leaving the two women, he strolled out of the hotel and stood -listening to a discussion going on among the members of a crowd of -men standing before the entrance. Lemuel Huntington was being -roundly condemned. There were ominous grumblings, threats being -voiced; mob law was being openly fomented. To Warburton, wise in the -psychology of crime and the natures of men, darkness alone was -needed to spread the flame of lawlessness over that wild desert -settlement. It would sweep through the underworld section, and -thence from one mine bunk house to another, calling out the habitués -of the dens and the grimy underground workers to mass in one -vicious, formidable army, that, venting its violence on the -Huntington ranch and its household, might finish out the night with -an orgy of destruction and murder in the camp itself. - -He looked up and down the street. Groups of men were everywhere. His -eyes rested on the gilt sign bearing Quintell’s name, on the -Brokers’ Exchange Building. A grim smile parted his lips. Quintell -was surely a power in Geerusalem, he told himself. Presently his eye -fell on the dapper figure of the town constable. The fellow, in -correct mining camp attire—the rakish cut approved by the ranking -element—stood spread-legged on the sidewalk, complacently smoking a -cigarette. Warburton’s jaws set. He strode over to the man. - -“Hullo, Mitchell!” he said gruffly. - -The other glanced at the sheriff’s face with its two weeks’ growth -of bristly whiskers, at the dirty shirt and overalls, then back at -their owner’s face. - -“It isn’t possible that it’s Sheriff Warburton?” he began, with a -grin. - -“It is. When I’m doin’ my duty, Mitchell, I don’t tog up. I’d like -to talk to you a minute.” He led the way to the hotel office, -halting just inside the entrance. “What’re you goin’ to do about -this thing—all this lynch-law stuff they’re cookin’ up?” he asked. - -The constable chuckled. “Do? Why, I’m powerless to do anything. A -man would be crazy to interfere. The sentiment of the camp is such -that if I butted in, they’d swear I was trying to protect Huntington -and——” - -“What’re you sportin’ that tin buzzer for,” broke in Warburton, with -a contemptuous nod at the silver star on the breast of Mitchell’s -tailored coat. - -The man flushed angrily. “Say, Warburton, what’s eating you, -anyhow?” he asked defiantly. “I’m constable of this township and——” - -“You’ll find out what’s eatin’ me, in jest about ten minutes,” -snapped the sheriff. “You git on the job or, by God, you’ll wisht -you had! I’m tellin’ you somepn, Mitchell.” Glaring at the other, he -turned and walked out of the door. - -Mitchell’s rough laugh followed him. - -Raging inwardly, cursing to himself, Warburton halted on the -sidewalk. Word of his presence in camp had traveled like magic, and -the crowd before the hotel was fast filling the street from curb to -curb. It was an ominous crowd, the dregs of the settlement mingling -with the army of mine workers, with here and there one of Quintell’s -associates, circulating through the ranks whispering words of -advice. Standing there in full view of the multitude, glancing it -over, Warburton marked the hostility in its look and attitude. -Caustic remarks began to be directed at him. - -“Where’s your bandit friend, sheriff?” - -“Hey, fellers, there’s Huntington’s bodyguard!” - -“Billy Gee’s duck-hunting on the Huntington ranch, Warburton. Why -don’t you go get him?” - -Warburton’s jaw set. His eyes flickered dangerously. A few yards -away, grouped together on the sidewalk, stood a dozen or more -cow-punchers—members of the Las Animas ranch, a large principality -of fertile range on the north rim of Soapweed Plains—their great -hats and gaudy silk neckerchiefs conspicuous in that sea of drab -sameness. Having nothing in common with the men of the mines, they -stood, curious spectators of the drama that was being enacted before -them, maintaining a strictly neutral attitude in an affair of which -they knew absolutely nothing. They had arrived in camp an hour -before for a three-day lark and, true to the traditions of their -kind, were willing to accept whatever fate tendered them—so long as -it promised a departure from the usual humdrum of their daily -existence. - -Warburton gave them a significant look, then he faced the crowd -again and raised his hand for silence. - -So it was, that, as Quintell, accompanied by Lex Sangerly, Harrison, -and two other men drove down the street in a machine bound for the -Lucky Boy placer claims, they found the greatest throng ever -assembled in Geerusalem gathered before the Miners’ Hotel, listening -to Sheriff Warburton’s defense of Lemuel Huntington. The official -was speaking vehemently, angrily, looking massive and potential from -his elevated position on a hotel chair. - -Quintell, who was driving, steered the car through the jam of men to -a point opposite the speaker. He was pale, his eyes blazing with -hatred. Warburton was just bringing his talk to a conclusion. - -“An’ that’s how I happen to be in these parts. I’ve swore to git -Billy Gee, dead or alive, an’ that’s what I aim to do. I was at the -ranch last night from start to finish—like I jest said. An’ the man -that says Lem Huntington is in cahoots with Billy Gee is a damn -liar.” - -Quintell slipped out from back of the steering wheel and stood up. -Neatly groomed, his appearance—compared with the sheriff’s—at once -dignified and impressive, he merited in every particular the title -he had earned—boss of Geerusalem. With a sharp glance over the -crowd, he began in a slow, ringing voice: - -“Men of Geerusalem! I want you to all know that, regardless of what -this sheriff of San Buenaventura County has said, he is not only an -intimate friend of Lemuel Huntington, but the very man who has let -Billy Gee slip through his fingers twice. There stands efficiency -for you.” He leveled an accusing finger at Warburton. “There’s the -stripe of official the taxpayers of this county are supporting—an -official who has the audacity to address an intelligent audience of -this kind in an endeavor to whitewash the shrewdest crook who ever -betrayed the trust of the good people of this camp and section. -Gentlemen, it’s this official’s word against mine. I charge Lemuel -Huntington with being on intimate terms with an outlaw. Whom are you -going to believe?” - -A wild, deafening roar went up, increasing in volume as Warburton, -his face purple with fury, made an attempt to speak. - -“Lynch him! Lynch him! Get Huntington!” howled the multitude. - -They swarmed about Quintell’s machine, clamoring their approval of -the broker. The din and excitement grew. Sheriff Warburton stood -deserted, ignored, outraged. The veins on his forehead and neck were -swelled to bursting, his big hands opened and shut with an odd, slow -movement. Lex Sangerly, sitting in the seat beside Quintell, watched -him curiously. From behind the curtains of a second-story window, -Dot and Mrs. Liggs looked down terrified at the mob of infuriated -men. - -Warburton’s eyes sought the group of cow-punchers again. He stepped -down off the chair and reached them in two strides. A few curt words -sent them hurrying off to a stable around the nearest corner. Then, -his jaw set determinedly, the sheriff elbowed his way through the -crowd to the side of Quintell’s machine. - -“I’m warnin’ every man here ag’in startin’ anything,” he shouted. -“As sheriff of this county, I’ll enforce the law if I got to shoot -to do it. Understand that! An’ if I can’t do it, there’s national -guards that kin. Keep away from Huntington an’ his ranch, if you -ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” He turned to Quintell, who stood eying -him venomously. “As for you, Mr. Man, if you don’t want to be -throwed in for inspirin’ violence, you’d better git a-goin’. Drive -on, or I’ll show you what kind of an official you got to deal with!” - -Quintell hesitated; then he slid reluctantly into his seat. As the -car started moving off, he fastened his fiery gaze on Warburton. - -“We’ll meet again, sheriff,” he snarled back. “You can’t bluff me. -You may protect a crook, but you won’t get away with it—not if I can -stop it! Huntington goes. Remember that!” - -The cow-punchers of the Las Animas ranch came spurring into the -street at that moment, and at Warburton’s orders began dispersing -the crowd. A little later, while Constable Mitchell was indignantly -condemning the sheriff’s action to a group of Quintell’s supporters -in the hotel office, Warburton entered and placed him under arrest -and marched him off to the camp’s jail. Relieving him of his keys, -the sheriff locked the fellow in a cell and placed two riders on -guard. - -“This ain’t very formal, Mitchell,” he said grimly, “’cos I ain’t -got time to monkey with warrants and citations. You kin take yore -pick whether you turn in yore star or git yanked up before the grand -jury.” - - -CHAPTER XXII—A SHOWDOWN - -The day passed slowly. It was a day throbbing with threat and -tragedy on the eve of happening. Night fell, but there was no -noticeable change in the situation. Legitimate places of business -closed early; and singularly enough the usual crowds that streamed -up and down the main street were absent, the dance halls and -gambling hells deserted, the camp strangely, ominously peaceful. - -For one thing, public sentiment against Lemuel Huntington had -crystallized rather than abated. Sheriff Warburton’s drastic action -together with his threat to call for the militia in the event he -could not handle the disorder, stirred the Quintell forces to -violent hatred. What inflamed them most was the fact that he had -dispatched a number of his deputized cow-punchers to guard the -Huntington ranch. That the official was protecting a criminal and -not taking steps to capture that criminal, became the burden of the -Quintell element’s cry in order to win over to their side the -minority law-abiding population of the town. - -During the afternoon a number of incidents had occurred which did -anything but relieve the tension. The first of these was the arrival -of a desperately wounded horseman. He came riding up the street, -half hanging out of his saddle, semiconscious, a gaping wound in his -side. He proved to be one of the six expert gunmen sent by Quintell -to dispossess and murder the discoverers of the Billy Geerusalem -bonanza strike. He died, and the name of his slayer died with him. -Quintell, raging in his office, waited for the return of the other -five. When they did not report, he had Big George Rankin take two -automobile loads of men to the scene, with instructions to seize the -claims at all cost. Rankin came back an hour later, stating that -they had been stopped by a body of armed cowboys patrolling the -plains in the neighborhood of the Huntington ranch. - -Another significant move, traceable to the emergency methods and -industry of Sheriff Warburton, was the sudden appearance in -Geerusalem of a growing army of these self-same cowboys. They began -arriving at intervals, throughout the afternoon, riding up the -street singly and in pairs, in dozens and by the score. They came -heavily armed, delegation after delegation of them, grim-faced, -wiry, silent men who feared neither man nor devil. Every ranch in -that far-flung, fertile hill territory—known as the Green Range—to -the north of Soapweed Plains, became represented as the day wore on. -For Warburton had dispatched Las Animas riders speeding through the -desert, appealing to the ranch owners for help to nip in the bud the -reign of rioting and bloodshed which threatened to sweep the camp. - -In the midst of this menacing state of affairs, Lex Sangerly had -returned from an inspection of the Lucky Boy placer group, at the -mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, the conviction now firm in his mind that -the Quintell outfit had salted the ground over which the proposed -branch line of the Mohave & Southwestern must of necessity pass to -reach its terminal in the settlement. He had watched Harrison taking -samples of the gravel, here and there, and had seen those samples -turned over to the assayer—himself retaining duplicates of each, for -purposes of a check-up. - -It had all seemed part of a clean transaction, except when he had -manifested the desire of himself choosing a second test of the -ground. To this Quintell politely demurred, going so far as to -declare that he and his associates were in no wise eager for a track -to cross the claims, since it would interfere greatly with the -extensive work they planned. He pointed out, too, that the matter of -purchase had come from the railroad company, that he and his -partners had made no overtures with a view to disposing of a right -of way. - -While Lex was waiting at the Miners’ Hotel for the assayer’s report -on the samples, his father—Western manager of the road—arrived from -Los Angeles unexpectedly. Sangerly, senior, a clean, sharp-eyed man -of fifty, with a close-cropped mustache and thick, stiff, iron-gray -hair, was accompanied by the State traffic manager, a Mr. Hudson, a -quiet, mild type of person whose one distinctive trait was his -ability to listen and say nothing. Lex’s father, it seems, had -determined, following receipt of his son’s telegram the day before, -on taking a personal hand in the negotiations for the purchase of -the Lucky Boy right of way. - -After spending some time in a happy renewal of his old friendship -with little Mrs. Liggs and a talk with Dot, Mr. Sangerly, -accompanied by Hudson and Lex, held a conference with the owners of -the placer claims in Jule Quintell’s offices. The certificates of -assay showed the ground to be rich—thanks to Harrison’s precision in -the old-time art of salting. As Lex had surmised, the price demanded -by the Lucky Boy coterie for the privilege of laying the M. & S. -tracks across their fabulous claims was correspondingly large. It -was excessive, staggering in the circumstances—fifty thousand -dollars. - -The conference came to an end without an agreement being reached. -The railroad men would take the proposition under advisement, they -said. The coterie smiled pleasantly; they had the company in the -hollow of their hand. It would have to buy. There was no other way -to enter Geerusalem except through Geerusalem Gulch. - -Briefly, when night settled on that waspish little desert gold camp, -Quintell and his circle were apparently in command of the situation. -First, they had the population thoroughly aroused against Lemuel -Huntington—the man himself was in hiding for his life—and it would -be only a question of time before he could be induced to dispose of -his holdings in a community inimical to him. Again, they had the -Mohave & Southwestern in a position where it must either meet their -terms or build the terminal out on a rocky wash far beyond the -confines of the camp. As for Sheriff Warburton, Quintell cursed him, -laughed at his hick methods, boasted to his confederates that he was -considering having the official ridden out of town on a rail. - -However, with the success of his double plots all but realized, Jule -Quintell worried. He wondered whether Tinnemaha Pete and Jerome -Liggs had been dispatched. He couldn’t believe that the other five -expert gunmen had suffered the fate of the one who had died without -speaking. - -As has been said, it was mysteriously quiet in Geerusalem on this -night. Few were about, and save for the tramp of horses’ hoofs, -announcing to listening ears the presence of Warburton’s -cow-punchers patrolling the settlement, and the din of orchestras -from the brilliantly lighted dance halls, one would have readily -affirmed that the sheriff’s summary action had restored law and -order to a hitherto unknown degree. The truth was, Geerusalem waited -in the security of its home, restless and vengeful, thirsting to -riot—waited on orders from Big George Rankin and watched the clock. -The dynamite squad was abroad. - -Shortly before eight, a little old man came stumping out of the -darkness of a side street. He paused in the flood of light pouring -out of a saloon. It was Tinnemaha Pete. He looked about him, -confused. Though he knew the vast Mohave Desert as a child did its -rudimentary A B C’s, he knew little or nothing about Geerusalem, -particularly by night. Just now, he gazed timidly into the saloon, -stroking his thin beard with a tremulous hand. A man came out of the -place presently, and the desertarian stopped him to ask where Jule -Quintell lived. - -Having got his directions, he stumbled away through the dark and -found the neat, rock bungalow built on the crest of a small hill -that partially overlooked the camp. Light shone through the spacious -windows, and the sound of an operatic selection being played on a -phonograph came to his ears. He fixed the location of the house -firmly in his capricious old brain and hobbled back the way he had -come. Not remembering having ever seen the man Jule Quintell, he -wondered curiously what this popular broker, the boss of Geerusalem, -looked like. - -At about the same time, Dot, in the parlor of the Miners’ Hotel, was -reminding Lex Sangerly that he had an appointment with Billy Gee at -the home of Jule Quintell. But Lex was wrought up over the -uncompromising attitude of the broker in the matter of the right of -way transaction and held out against giving him even the -satisfaction of a visit. - -“But I wanted to accompany you, Mr. Sangerly, and we’ll ask your -father to go along, too,” she urged. - -He looked at her in surprise. Then he laughed. “Why, you wouldn’t -think of such a thing, Miss Huntington, and I know it! You just want -me to meet Billy Gee, and——” - -She shook her head. “But I do. I’m going to confront him. I’m going -to accuse him of having inspired the work of that mob last night.” -She broke off, then resumed in another voice: “My poor father hiding -at Blue Mud Spring, like a criminal, both of us driven from home, -dreading to go back to that ruined house! Don’t you understand how I -feel?” She looked at him, and he noted the tragic, hunted expression -in her eyes. “I feel, Mr. Sangerly, that something must come of this -visit. I can’t tell you just why, but I have a premonition that you -are going to be indebted to—to Billy Gee.” - -Lex gazed soberly at her for some seconds. “Very well, we’ll go,” he -said at last; “and I promised you I’d not have an officer at my -elbow, didn’t I?” - -A little later, accompanied by the elder Sangerly, Lex and Dot set -out for the Quintell bungalow, the hotel porter leading the way. The -spacious windows were still ablaze, the phonograph still executing -its operatic serenade. Harrison, Quintell’s man Friday, opened the -door for them, and ushered them into the large living room, -furnished with a magnificence so wholly unexpected in this desert as -to bewilder visitors. - -Quintell entered shortly from the library where he sat reading. He -was dressed in a rich lounging robe and smoked a long calabash pipe. -He greeted them with his most winning smile and, seating himself, -let his eyes rest on Dot. As the preliminary talk proceeded, he kept -glancing at her frequently, his look one of undisguised approval and -admiration. - -“I am deeply interested in the novel I hear you’re writing, Miss -Huntington,” he said. “I am informed you’ve paid me the honor of -using me as a character in the book. Mr. Sangerly has perhaps told -you that I’ll purchase five hundred copies.” - -“Rest assured the character will be true to life, at any rate,” -replied Dot simply. - -“Ah—yes, doubtless!” smiled Quintell, and went on: “I regret very -much to hear that you suffered at the hands of that mob, last night, -Miss Huntington. Personally, I’m opposed to violence of that sort. -It would seem to me that in this case where your father has been -found to be on intimate terms with Billy Gee, instead of venting its -spite by such destructive methods, the populace should insist——” - -Dot flushed with anger at the palpable deceit in the man’s demeanor. -“Pardon me, Mr. Quintell,” she broke in, “but I understand from a -reliable source that you were instrumental in this violence which -you now pretend to deprecate. I came here this evening to find out -if you are man enough to show your hand.” Her eyes were on him -fixedly, fiery. - -He calmly removed his calabash from his mouth. “My dear young lady,” -he replied in measured tones, “it strikes me that you might have -visited me at my office, instead of disturbing the peace of my home -in this manner. However, allow me to tell you that, having nothing -to gain and not harboring any ill feeling against your father, I -certainly would not urge the action taken by that mob. Perhaps -you’ll now tell me who your reliable source of information was?” - -The girl was silent, studying him wrathfully. - -“Billy Gee told us,” asserted Lex, speaking for the first time; “and -he seemed to know what he was talking about,” he added -significantly. His father turned wide, horrified eyes on him. - -“Billy Gee!” cried Quintell. He threw back his head and laughed -aloud. “In Heaven’s name! Is it possible that the officials of the -Mohave & Southwestern are also involved along with Lem Huntington in -the heroic exploits of this romantic train robber? Tell me,” he -continued tauntingly, “have these reported train holdups I’ve read -so much about been a little stunt to advertise your road, similar to -‘Death Valley’ Scott’s transcontinental run a few years ago—to snare -the gullible tourists to California?” - -Lex winced at the insult. “You may draw whatever conclusion you -choose, Quintell,” he said coolly. “The point is that Miss -Huntington is here to speak with you about——” - -“I have already answered Miss Huntington’s question,” cut in the -other, and there was a trace of a sneer in his voice. “I don’t feel -myself called upon to refute the statement of a common criminal. -Another thing, the citizens’ committee, of which I am chairman, -decided at a meeting this afternoon to give Mr. Huntington -twenty-four hours—or until six o’clock to-morrow evening—to dispose -of his property, settle up his affairs, and leave Soapweed Plains. -We have found him undesirable. We do not want him here. What steps -will be taken, should he fail to comply with the order——” - -A cry of horror burst from Dot. She rose to her feet, pale and -trembling. She stared wildly, dumbly, from Lex to his father, then -fearfully at the broker. - -“Good God, Quintell!” gasped young Sangerly. “You certainly aren’t -going to be a party to this atrocity? It’s unjust—it’s criminal, -man! Huntington is as innocent of these charges as you are. It’s a -damnable frame-up. I’ll stake my life on his honesty.” - -Quintell resumed his pipe, lit it, and shrugged his shoulders. -“Well, I’m not the whole show here. The ruling was made in open -meeting, by unanimous vote. So far as the disposal of the property -is concerned, I’ll buy it off of him—even though he turned me down, -once. But I won’t pay a fancy price for it—it’s not worth it.” He -blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “As a matter of fact, I -wouldn’t touch it, if you turned down the right of way purchase. I -couldn’t. Money is tight right now.” - -Dot, struck speechless by this appalling announcement, now found her -voice. Defiance flashed from her eyes; her pretty face set with a -furious purpose. “Mr. Quintell,” she cried, “you and your committee -may continue to issue orders. You may make whatever decisions you -wish. I defy you to put them into execution. I’ll take it personally -on myself to see that my father leaves the plains in the morning. -But I remain. Do you understand? I remain! I want to see how many -men in Geerusalem will take sides against a woman. And when it suits -me to sell the Huntington ranch——” - -“I’ll buy it!” snapped out the elder Sangerly. He said it harshly, -violently. - -A sudden tense silence fell. Quintell straightened noticeably in his -chair. His teeth clenched hard over the calabash. The Western -manager of the Mohave & Southwestern was watching him, with the -sagacious, estimating look of the hard-headed business man. - -For a long moment, both men eyed each other steadily. Then a cynical -smile parted the broker’s lips. - -“Assuming that you’ll buy it, Mr. Sangerly, may I ask what you -propose doing with it—particularly when you realize that your -purchase of the Huntington ranch means our absolute refusal to grant -your company right of way privileges across the Lucky Boy ground -into Geerusalem?” He paused, his smile vanishing, his eyes narrowing -as he disclosed his hand. “And right here, let me say that you may -consider our negotiations held up pending the complete settlement of -the Huntington scandal and the final disposition of this ranch.” - -Harrison, sitting in an obscure corner of the room, caught his -breath, amazed at his master’s rash move. Sangerly represented a -powerful corporation. - -The railroad manager chuckled deep down in his throat. Open -opposition and threat were what he delighted to cope with; and in -the present case it was simply a matter of outwitting the enemy with -its own knowledge of facts. - -“Since you have taken such a bold stand in this thing, why not go on -and tell us your underlying motive, Mr. Quintell? Why not enlighten -us, for instance, with the information that, having learned of an -immensely rich gold strike on the land owned by Miss Huntington’s -father, you are reaching out after it—trying to get possession by -methods not much better than those employed by your rascally friend, -the claim jumper?” - -Quintell sprang from his chair with an oath. His face was drawn with -fury. He took one step toward Mr. Sangerly, then halted -irresolutely. - -Dot stared at the speaker in blank astonishment. Lex had risen and -stood watching Quintell, while Harrison made preparations to go to -his employer’s assistance at the first sign of trouble. - -The elder Sangerly, now got deliberately to his feet. He pointed an -authoritative finger at the boss of Geerusalem and shot out in sharp -tones: “I’m buying that ranch, Quintell. You may consider the right -of way negotiations ended, absolutely. There’ll be no M. & S. -terminal in Geerusalem. If Geerusalem wishes to do business with my -road, it can haul its freight and stage its passengers to and from -our trains. If we can’t do any better, we’ll erect our depot and -establish our yards on the Huntington ranch, and you people can -bridge the four-mile gap the best way you see fit——” - -“Oh, we can, can we?” broke in Quintell nastily. “Let me tell you -something, Sangerly! You just start that Hawthorne, Nevada, game of -giving this town the go-by, and I’ll see that your gangs’ll never -drive another spike.” - -“I’ll take that challenge,” said the other. “And now, let me tell -_you_ something. The Billy Geerusalem claims are so rich that the -new camp of Liggs, that I propose to start on the Huntington ranch, -will be the metropolis of Soapweed Plains inside of a month. Do you -happen to know Mrs. Agatha Liggs?” - -Quintell did not reply. There was a crafty, triumphant glint in his -eyes that somehow did not blend with his uncertainty of manner. - -“Well, I do,” went on Lex’s father. “And I’ve had a talk with her. -That’s how I know why you want that ranch. That’s why you’ll never -get it, Quintell. Do you know who owns the _Searchlight_ now?” - -Here, the broker found an opening. He had regained much of his -poise. “I always get what I go after, Sangerly,” he said grimly. -“Buy, and I start legal action. You’re not dealing with a hick, -don’t forget that! I have deeds showing transfer of those mining -claims by the locators—the original locators. I’ll tie your -operations up by injunction, as tight as a drum.” - -Mr. Sangerly fixed his steely eyes on him. “Was one of those -original locators Jerome Liggs?” he asked. - -“Jerome Liggs is a criminal at large—wanted for the robbery of the -Marysville city treasury. I don’t deal with criminals except to -notify the sheriff, and——” He broke off. - -Standing facing the door leading into the hall, a movement of one of -the portières attracted his eye. He stared at the gleaming barrel of -a six-shooter that suddenly flashed into view, covering him, and at -the tall, slim figure of the man back of it. His eyes widened, -remained fixed in fearful fascination on the newcomer. - -The latter advanced into the room and paused a few steps away from -the broker. His glance swept the room. It rested a moment on Dot and -returned to Quintell. The boss of Geerusalem paled, crumpled under -it. Dot’s breath came fast, and a blush rose to her cheeks as her -eyes rested, for the second time that day, on the hero of her -romantic dreams. - -“I’m Billy Gee, Miles,” said the outlaw laconically, gazing steadily -at Quintell. - - -CHAPTER XXIII—THE UPRISING - -“You don’t look awful glad to see an old friend, Miles,” said Billy -Gee suavely, after a short pause. “An’ so you’re Jule Quintell, the -boss of Geerusalem, I’ve heerd so much about, eh? They tell me you -bin runnin’ things to suit yoreself, an’ gettin’ away with it. Like -you got away with it that other time, eh, Miles? Oh, Pete!” he -called out suddenly. “Come on in an’ see who’s here!” - -Out of the hall behind him trotted Tinnemaha Pete. He stopped, -squinting at the visitors. - -“Oho! If it ain’t you, Dot! What’re ye doin’—an’ Mr. Spangaree, or -I’m a liar! That’s yore ol’ man, ain’t it?” His glance fell on -Quintell, then he shuffled up to him and peered boldly into his -face. “Billy,” he burst out, giggling, “you ol’ son-of-a-gun, you -ketched him! Kill him! Go on an’ kill him——” - -The outlaw raised his hand restrainingly. “I bin watchin’ around for -you ever since that time, Miles,” he said, addressing the broker. “I -oughter shoot you, jest like Pete says. Folks think I’m a pretty -tough cuss. Mebby I am. Anyhow, I’m puttin’ you over the hurdles. -Now, you tell these people the name you know me by. Go on!” - -“His—Jerome Liggs,” faltered Quintell, with an effort. - -“Jerome!” gasped Lex. He took a quick step toward the bandit and -stared at him with wide eyes. The elder Sangerly frowned -bewilderedly. The man who had, for three years, rifled the trains of -the M. & S.! - -“Now, Miles, tell ’em what you done to the Lucky Boy claims last -night!” went on Billy Gee grimly. He jammed the menacing six-shooter -into the man’s midriff. “Tell ’em how you salted ’em—everything!” - -While the broker began in a reluctant, hesitating voice, Harrison -edged quietly out of the room. He sped out through the back door of -the bungalow and thence down the dark hillside, racing like mad for -the main street to arouse the camp. - -Meanwhile, Miles, alias Jule Quintell, confessed. His audacity, -self-assurance, arrogance, vanished with that confession. -Confronting him, holding him at the point of a gun, was a man who -held a long-standing grudge against him, none other than the -notorious desperado, Billy Gee, the man on whom he had shunted the -crime of robbing the Marysville city treasury. - -Billy Gee now turned to Dot and the two Sangerlys. “Folks,” he said -evenly. “Miles here jest told you that Jerome Liggs robbed the -Marysville city treasury. That’s why I’m Billy Gee. To-night I’m -turnin’ him over to Sheriff Warburton, an’ Tinnemaha Pete—who used -to be janitor of the Marysville city hall—he’ll swear he saw -Treasurer Miles actin’ mighty suspicious in his office, round one -o’clock one night.” - -“Will I? Will I?” cried the old desert rat jubilantly. “Reckillect, -Billy, what I told you? I seen him puttin’ a package——Kill him, -Billy! Why don’t you go on an’ kill him! Don’t be a damn fool! D’ye -hear?” - -Shortly afterward, the door of Quintell’s desert mansion opened, and -its owner stepped onto the veranda. Behind him came Billy Gee, -followed by the rest. They set out down the terraced grounds for the -street—a strange procession surely, five men and a girl. Dot reached -the outlaw’s side and touched his arm. - -“Jerome,” she whispered. “I’m afraid. You must not take the risk. -You must not meet Sheriff Warburton. He’s looking for you. Don’t you -understand, Jerome?” There was a little catch in her voice. - -“There’s no need worryin’,” he replied. “If I have to skip out -sudden tell Lex I want to see him at the ranch the furst thing in -the mornin’. An’ you come along, won’t you? That other chap musta -sneaked out after help, but we’ll fool him,” he added. - -She kept pace with him, Quintell moodily plodding on before them. -Once she looked up at Billy Gee. There were fine lines in his face, -she thought, despite the fact that she could only just make out his -features in the uncertain light reflecting from the business -thoroughfares, some blocks away. Presently, she found herself -thrilling over the realization that she was walking beside a -popularly supposed “bad man” in action, one who, through her -influence, had abandoned his lawless career to get back into the -ranks of the law-abiding. But the strange surge of pride she felt -was fleeting. The utter hopelessness of the effort struck her with -full force. He was a fugitive. He would remain a fugitive until he -was captured; even now, Sheriff Warburton was in the country to -capture him. Again, she laid her hand on his arm—clutched it. - -“Jerome, please! For—for my sake, Jerome, don’t meet Warburton. Let -this wretch go. It is too late for revenge. Please—Jerome!” she -urged wildly. - -He looked down at her and smiled. He opened his mouth to speak but -the words were never uttered. A deafening explosion on the main -street ahead, broke horribly on the still night, shook the ground -under their feet, and brought them to a sudden halt. Quintell, -seizing the opportunity to escape, started forward, then stopped in -his tracks as his captor’s revolver prodded him in the back. - -At that moment, a two-story stone building standing in the -brilliantly illuminated center of the camp crumpled before their -eyes, crashed into ruins with a muffled roar. A great cloud of dust -shot into the air. - -“The _Searchlight_! They’ve—they’ve dynamited the _Searchlight_!” -cried Lex aghast. - -“Good heaven!” burst out the elder Sangerly. “Babcock—the men, Lex! -They might have been at work—some of them.” A furious cry broke from -him. He sprang at Quintell and caught him by the throat. “You -devil!” he panted. “Not content with trying to rob us, you destroy -our property—the newspaper we wrested from your filthy clutches. You -miserable——” - -“Father!” Lex dragged the other back forcibly. “Listen! This is no -time for that sort of thing. We are in danger, without making -matters worse. The camp is backing him, backing him to a man.” - -Quintell overheard him. “I’m glad you appreciate that fact, Mr. -Sangerly,” he remarked with a harsh chuckle. “If I may be permitted -to say it, you’re all in imminent danger of your lives. I would -advise you to see that I’m set free. Otherwise, I won’t be -responsible for consequences. This man is a criminal. It is -ridiculous to believe that he will turn me over to the sheriff—to -the very man who is looking for him. He’s bluffing.” - -“We’ll see about that,” said Billy Gee curtly. “Come on—get a-goin’! -If yore friends start shootin’, so do I. I’ve bin waitin’ for this -chance too long, Miles. I’m goin’ through with it now. Better you -take the sidewalk, Dot,” he added gently. “There’s trouble comin’, I -reckon. Tell Lex to hurry on ahead to the Miners’ Hotel an’ notify -Warburton we’re on our way. He’ll know where to meet us. Take down -this back street, Miles, an’ watch yore step!” - -The street he indicated was a deserted back thoroughfare paralleling -the main one of the camp. The rear of the Miners’ Hotel faced it, -and a little distance farther on, was the gate leading into the yard -back of the dry-goods store through which Billy Gee had flitted on -many a midnight to visit his mother. - -With Quintell obeying the outlaw’s command, the group turned to -enter the side street. Their footfalls rang out sharply on the rocky -ground. Following the explosion, a profound silence had fallen on -the settlement, broken only by the sound of galloping hoofs as -Warburton’s deputies dashed for the scene of destruction. - -Suddenly a wild shout rose out of the gloom of the side street. It -swelled into a roar, coming from all directions. In a twinkling, the -thoroughfare became alive with men, pouring from every conceivable -hiding place in the vicinity. Lex and his father cried out a -warning. The former caught Dot by the arm. - -“Come! Run! They’ll trample us!” he shouted. - -But she shook him off, her eyes flashing with a resolute fire. “I’m -all right. Take care of your father and Pete. Get them away!” Her -voice was harsh, commanding. - -The outlaw gave a short laugh. Lex hesitated an instant, then -started off on a run for the sidewalk, dragging his father with him. -They collided with the onrushing horde of furious men and went -wallowing. Tinnemaha Pete, his old brain grasping the peril of the -situation at the first alarm, escaped the crush and fled like mad -for the Miners’ Hotel. - -Meanwhile, Billy Gee’s disengaged hand had fastened on Quintell’s -coat collar. He jerked the boss around out of the treacherous -darkness and headed him for the brilliantly lighted main street, a -block away. His six-shooter was boring into his prisoner’s back, -cutting into the flesh. - -“Talk to ’em, Miles!” he hissed into the other’s ear. “Talk to ’em -fast, Miles, or I let go!” - -Quintell put up a trembling hand. His face was ashen, drawn with -fear. “Men, he’s got me. Stop, men! He’s got me! Can’t you see? -Stand back! For God’s sake, men, stand back!” he panted wildly. - -The mob halted its forward rush—frenzied, baffled. It circled just -out of arm’s reach of the trio, a solid mass of surging, lawless -humanity that itched for the letting of blood, gripping their -murderous weapons, filling the night with their cries and curses. -Like stampeded cattle, they milled and strained around the three, -shouting their foul threats and insults at the girl and the outlaw, -reassuring their master, waiting with wolfish eagerness for the -moment when they could fall upon their prey and destroy it. - -“Fellers,” proclaimed Billy Gee, his tones cool and deliberate, -“this here is a personal matter ’twixt me an’ him. His name ain’t -Quintell. It’s Gene Miles. He robbed the Marysville city treasury -three years ago an’ laid the job on me. Gangway, men, gangway!” he -added, starting Quintell onward. - -“He lies! He lies!” cried Harrison, shouldering his way to the -front. “This is Billy Gee, the bandit. He held us up—burglarized -Jule Quintell’s home. He’s taking him down to the office to make him -open the safe. Are you going to let him get away with it, men? Are -you letting him pull off this rough stuff before your eyes, in a -civilized community? One man against a thousand? Are you going to -stand for——” - -“Talk to ’em, Miles! Talk to ’em!” threatened Billy Gee. “Tell ’em -to fall back an’ let us through. You’ll go before I do, Miles. I got -a bead on yore heart. I’ll be good for one bullet—maybe more.” - -Again, the broker called on that frantic crowd, supplicated it -vehemently in an agony of terror. Snarling its hatred, its ranks -parted grudgingly, then closed in behind where Dot brought up the -rear with Billy Gee’s other revolver tight gripped in her hand. - -Carried away by the desperateness of the outlaw’s plight, Dot had -whisked the six-shooter from the holster of her romantic hero, -resolved to back him in his fight, to perish with him, if necessary. -Just now, she kept her gun trained on the bank of vicious faces that -crowded after her. There was a fire in her eyes and a determination -on her pretty face, far more eloquent than any words. - -They turned into the main street finally, and continued on down, -moving slowly, the multitude pressing in on them, raging around -them, menacing them still. They passed the great heap of débris -which had once represented the home of the Geerusalem _Searchlight_. -As they reached the corner, out of the cross street dashed a troop -of cow-punchers, with Sheriff Warburton at their head. Others -followed, thundering down upon the mob from front and rear, scores -of the grim-faced riders of the range waiting only for the signal to -open fire on the enemy. - -“Men of Geerusalem, as sheriff of San Buenaventura County, I order -you to disperse!” shouted Warburton in ominous tones. - -The mob halted. It stood hemmed in by mounted men, surrender being -the only alternative left it, save that of bloody resistance. There -was a tense, heavy silence. - -Billy Gee, followed by Dot, thrust Quintell forward until he stood -at the sheriff’s stirrup. - -“Hullo, Billy!” said Warburton curtly. - -“Hullo, Bob!” replied Billy Gee. “Here’s yore man. What d’you want -done with him?” - -“Herd him on down to the hotel, an’ I’ll——” - -“This is an outrage, sheriff,” broke from Quintell. - -“Collusion!” cried Harrison, at the top of his lungs. “Warburton, I -demand the arrest of Billy Gee, notorious outlaw and criminal at -large. Men, they’re in cahoots! It’s a frame-up! A political -frame-up!” - -A sudden wave of fury swept over the massed body of the mob. Big -George Rankin’s face glared murderously for one instant out of its -depths. - -“Altogether, gang! Give the cow-chasers hell!” he yelled, opening -fire on the nearest riders as he spoke. - -In a twinkling, the battle was on. The street was converted into a -bloody arena reverberating with the roar of blazing six-shooters and -the shouts and curses of frenzied men. Taking advantage of the -moment, Billy Gee thrust Dot in front of him, and with Quintell -leading the way, fled in a hail of bullets for the Miners’ Hotel. -The conflict raged on fiercely, the mob fighting with desperate -abandon to break through the cordon of mounted deputies. Up and down -the main street dashed terrified horses, riderless. Other -cow-punchers, thirsting to avenge their fellows’ deaths, filled up -the ranks. The street became littered with dead and dying. -Stubbornly, furiously, the Quintell element fought. Then Big George -Rankin passed out, a curse on his lips. - -Sheriff Warburton raised his voice over the tumult: - -“Las Animas an’ Bar-G men, close in there! Ride ’em down!” - -The two cow-puncher outfits swung into line and set spurs to their -horses. Into the mob they drove, head on, hurling it back, trampling -its members under hoof. Like some irresistible tide, they swept on -recklessly, fatally; and the rioters began to give way, to retreat, -slowly at first, then with increasing haste, before the savage -advance. Presently they broke and fled for the security of the -sidewalks, pouring into saloon and dance hall and gambling den, -availing themselves of every means of escape. The street cleared as -if by magic. In the dust lay the dead, Big George Rankin and -Harrison among them. Through the camp sped bodies of horsemen -bearing the sinister message: - -“Lights out! Keep inside or be shot on sight!” - -Warburton, bleeding from a nasty scalp wound, reached the hotel -finally. He was in a fiery mood. He rushed Quintell upstairs to a -room, handcuffed him, and put a guard over him. Then he came down -again, wiping the blood from the side of his face, and walked over -to where Billy Gee and Dot were standing. - -“You know what we agreed, Billy? I got to git patched up an’ I’ll be -busy most o’ the night,” he said tersely. - -The outlaw nodded. “I’m goin’ out to the Huntington ranch to-night, -Bob. The agreement stands.” - -“You kin expect me there round noon, Billy,” said Warburton, turning -away. - -“You’ll find me waitin’, sheriff.” - -“Send them cow-punchers in. Tell ’em to report here.” - -Half an hour later, a hostler brought two saddle horses up to the -hotel entrance. Lex Sangerly and his father stood on the sidewalk -along with Mrs. Liggs, and watched as Billy Gee and Dot mounted and -rode down the quiet street, bound for the lonely, desolate ranch on -Soapweed Plains. Mrs. Liggs was weeping disconsolately into her -handkerchief, a pathetic little figure, bent and broken with a -sorrow she had never earned. - -The moon was just rising, flooding the gaunt land with its soft, -compassionate glow. There was a subtle charm in that desert realm; a -strange beauty in the night. But Dot was oblivious to these -enchantments, ideal though they were for tender words of love, for -the delicious ecstasies of that first embrace, that first kiss. Her -heart was brimful of grief, weighed down with an overwhelming -sadness greater than she had ever known. Billy Gee was surrendering -to the law in the morning. He was passing out of her life, forever. - - -CHAPTER XXIV—WARBURTON GETS SQUARE - -Walking their horses down Geerusalem Gulch, they went, riding side -by side. Neither spoke. They passed the lonely, dilapidated rock hut -where Lennox, wounded, had applied for help on that exciting night -of his flight from camp, and crossed the monumented gravel bar that -was to be known thereafter as Quintell’s Unlucky Boy. Ahead of them -spread the great, gray floor of Soapweed Plains, looking under the -sheen of the moon like some placid ghostly sea. From out of the -immeasurable distances came the pitiful howl of a wild dog foraging -hopelessly for food. - -As they reached the point in the gulch where it began to spill its -rocky bottom over the bosom of the plains, Dot turned her head and -looked at Billy Gee. Her face was pale, her lips drawn. - -“Why did you ever do it, Jerome?” she asked in dead tones. - -He bent a sharp glance at her. Her cheeks shone wet in the -moonlight. - -“I’m glad now I did, Dot,” he said simply. “But he had me dead to -rights—arrested. I couldn’t help it. It was my only way out. An’ I -wanted to save you folks, an’ there was Lex bein’ swindled on that -placer proposition. I wouldn’t stand for——” - -“How did you know?” - -“I seen him. It was right out yonder,” he said, pointing back up the -wash where he had overheard Quintell and Harrison discussing the -salting of the Lucky Boy group the night before. He explained the -incident briefly to her. “He lit a match, an’ I got a look at his -face an’ knowed him. You can’t ever guess how I felt about it, Dot,” -he went on, in a harsh voice. “Here was the man who had made me a -bandit, the man I bin huntin’ and huntin’ for three years. When he -planted that evidence against me to clear himself an’ make me out -the thief, I was one of his clerks, an’ I’d already bin talked about -to run against him at the next election. That’s why he done it, I -reckon. Well, it’s all over now.” - -“But Pete knew all about it. Oh, Jerome, why didn’t you let him -swear out a warrant for Quintell’s arrest!” cried Dot miserably. - -“Poor ol’ Pete! He’s scary an’ funny, an’ more’n likely they’d think -he was jest imaginin’ things. No, Dot! It’s better the way it turned -out.” He paused, then continued in slow, plaintive tones: “After I -got away from them night riders this mornin’, I kept lookin’ back. I -was afraid they’d drop in at the ranch ag’in—an’ my mother was -there. An’—well, you was out yonder, too, Dot. Anyway, I was worried -an’ wasn’t watchin’ for Warburton. That’s how he come to git me. - -“He took me over to Blue Mud Spring, an’ me an’ him an’ yore dad -rode back to the ranch together. Then I told him about the -Marysville robbery, an’ Pete tells his story of how he seen Miles -leavin’ the city hall with a valise, round one o’clock, the night -before the robbery. There was a lot more said, for instance, how -Miles, or Quintell, as he calls himself, was tryin’ to drive you -folks out o’ the country, an’ how he’d salted these claims to hold -up the railroad comp’ny. Then I got the idea to git Miles, myself. I -told Warburton I figgered that much was comin’ to me, seein’ as how -Miles had made me a criminal. Yore dad took sides with me, Dot. Yes, -he did. An’ Warburton agreed. He put me on my honor.” - -He laughed. “Everything’s turned out dandy. An’ the Billy Geerusalem -claims is goin’ to be split three ways, between Pete, my mother, an’ -yore dad. That’s all bin fixed, Dot, an’ better days are comin’.” - -As he finished speaking, he reached out suddenly, and his hand -closed hard over hers. Her face was averted, streaming with silent -tears. She was gazing mutely toward the boundless stretches of -desolation beyond which lay the now invisible violet and yellow -scallop of range that had formed the background of all her past -romantic dreams. She faced him suddenly, a sob bursting from her, -clutching his hand spasmodically. - -“It’s not too late, Jerome. It’s not too late,” she cried. “You can -escape. You have to! He must not take you. Do you know what it’ll -mean? The penitentiary for life! Dear God! Never to get free! To -count the long, long years passing, to grow old and wasted, to die -and find your freedom in the grave. Jerome, he must not take you. -You owe it to yourself, to your mother, to me! Jerome, for my sake, -if for no other reason!” - -She jerked her horse to an abrupt stop. Gone was her restraint. She -was weeping passionately, appealingly, with hysterical abandon. He -reined in beside her, leaned out of the saddle, caught her in his -arms, and drew her to him. His breath was coming from him in great -gasps. - -“Dot—darling!” he choked hoarsely. - -Her heart opened then, and she poured into his ear the strength of -her love for him, all her secret hopes, her fears, her mounting -despair, in one desperate outpouring of entreaty. - -“Don’t you remember, Jerome, dearest?” she sobbed distractedly. -“‘You poor, wounded wild animal,’ I called you. I wanted you then. -You wandered out of my dreamland, a part of my dreams. You came -living—dying, to me. You belonged to me. You belong to me now—now -that my heart is breaking for you, dear.” She stroked his face -fiercely with her hands. “To-night, I’ll speak to father. You must -be on your way to the Mexican border by midnight. We’ll sell the -ranch and the claims and follow, with your mother as soon as——” - -She broke off. Through the dead silence, bearing down on them from -the rear, came the sound of mad hoofs, the pop of a quirt against an -animal’s flanks mingling with the wild, weird cries of a man. Then, -into view loomed a diminutive rider. It was Tinnemaha Pete astride -one of his little burros. Like some grotesque goblin of the night he -came speeding up to them, cackling and sputtering incoherently. - -“They tell me ye give up—quit like a dollar watch. Quit like a——” he -screeched insanely, jerking his puffing burro to a stop. “Say it’s a -danged lie, Billy! Billy, d’ye hear? Don’t tell me ye ain’t got the -guts. Don’t tell me, my Billy boy ain’t got the guts. The son of -Agatha! D’ye mark that, Dot? D’ye want—d’ye want to—d’ye want to -kill me, Billy? To know—to know the buzzards’ll be peckin’ my -innards outer me, sooner’n they oughter?” - -He waved his skinny arms, a curious spasm of emotion sweeping over -him, racking his shriveled little body. - -“Jerome, did you hear? Oh, how can you refuse? How can you—— And -Sheriff Warburton would understand. He is so good and generous. -Please, Jerome, darling! Do as I say,” pleaded Dot passionately. - -It was nearly midnight when Lemuel Huntington admitted them. Dot was -pale and drawn of face, her eyes filled with suffering. Tinnemaha -Pete puffed furiously at his old pipe and muttered endlessly to -himself. Billy Gee sat down, bowed his head, and stared at the -floor. Presently the girl brought up a chair and, taking her place -close beside him, leaned her cheek against his arm and wept. - -Lemuel, clad in an old-fashioned night robe, stood and blinked at -them soberly. Throughout that day he had been repairing, where he -could, the damage wrought by the night riders, so that, lacking -certain pieces of furniture destroyed beyond all hope of -restoration, the interior of the house looked much the same as it -always had. - -Standing thus, watching the trio, he presently nodded gravely to -himself; for he recalled the agreement Billy Gee had entered into -with Bob Warburton, and he knew without being told that Jule -Quintell’s activities were at an end. Moreover, he was witnessing -the verification of a long-standing suspicion that his Dot was in -love with this outlaw. Without a word, he tiptoed into the little -closet where Lennox lay and closed the door after him. - -“It’s hell,” he whispered to the mining engineer, after they had -discussed the situation. “But she’ll ferget it, soon’s she gits back -to her edjucation. That’s one blessing. But ain’t it too bad, -Lennox? You see, he saved my life to-day, when them kiyotes were -takin’ me——” - -“He saved mine, too,” broke in the other with a sigh. - - -The next day dawned finally. The sun rose, gloriously bright, and a -playful little breeze came frolicking merrily out of the northwest. -A lone mocking bird had lingered for one whole hour in the -elderberry tree in the garden, pouring out a beautiful pæan, -heralding to the desolate world its love of life and freedom. - -Billy Gee was still at the ranch. He sat on the front porch with -Dot. They sat facing the distant island of chromatic hills where -nestled the camp of Geerusalem, watching the white thread of road -that led to it. Sheriff Warburton would come by that road. Now and -again, the girl would moan pitifully and wring her hands in silent -agony. Every little while, Billy Gee would clasp her close, and he -would kiss her hungrily and whisper fierce words of endearment into -her ear. - -Seated on a bench at one end of the porch, was Tinnemaha Pete. Like -a faithful dog grown old and purblind and helpless, he kept his -rheumy eyes riveted on this youthful partner of his who was -determined to keep his promise with the “keys of the penitentiary.” -Never, never had Tinnemaha Pete felt so broken-hearted, so near -death, so desperate. A dark, awful resolution had found a sanctuary -in his fanatical old brain. In the back pocket of his voluminous -overalls lay a loaded revolver. - -“An’ they kin hang me after,” he murmured to himself, over and over. -“An’ they kin hang me after. I’ve lived long enough—what? He ain’t. -An’ they kin hang me after. Betcha life, they kin—an’ I’ll laugh at -’em.” - -From the direction of the barn came the sounds of Lemuel’s hammer, -restoring the ravages of the mob. He was unusually solemn and -thoughtful. Presently he threw down the hammer and perched himself -on the top rail of the corral and watched the road to Geerusalem. - -The hours dragged by, heavy, tragic hours. Eight, nine, ten, eleven -o’clock came and went. At half past eleven, an automobile suddenly -made its appearance out of the far-away island of hills. It -approached at a wild rate. The driver proved to be Lex -Sangerly—alone. He brought the car to a stop, leaped out and dashed -up to the front porch. Tinnemaha Pete got to his feet and one -clawlike hand reached into his overalls pocket. - -“Compliments from Sheriff Warburton,” cried Lex jubilantly. “He’s -attending to some official business and couldn’t get here at the -appointed hour. He asked me to deliver this message to Jerome -Liggs.” He flourished a yellow sheet of paper, a telegram, which he -read aloud as Lemuel came hurrying up: - - “L. S. Sangerly, senior, Manager M. & S. R. R. - - “Your wire relative to Billy Gee’s parole considered and approved. - Withdrawal of charges against him by your company and your - personal concern in his case make me feel keenly interested in his - redemption. Your views are directly in line with my own. As you - must know I am inaugurating the honor system in the penal - institutions of this State. Kindest regards to yourself and - family. I am informing the sheriff of San Buenaventura County of - my action. - - “Hiram Bronson, Governor, - “State of California.” - -A hysterical cry of joy burst from Dot. Tinnemaha Pete dropped the -revolver back into his pocket and staggered blindly to the bench and -made curious, choking noises in his throat. - -Later that day, while Lemuel sat smoking on the porch and grinning -contentedly to himself, Billy Gee came out of the house and -confronted him. - -“Huntington!” he said shortly. “You reckillect that mornin’ I told -you I was goin’ to pay you back for sellin’ me out to Sheriff -Warburton?” - -The rancher took his pipe from his mouth and stared soberly at the -other. He did not reply. - -“Well, you’re payin’, old sport. Me an’ Dot’s goin’ to git married -nex’ Sunday, whether you like it or not. That’s how I square up with -you.” - -Before Lemuel could reply there was a heavy footfall in the hall and -a strident voice boomed heartily: - -“Hold on there, a minute, kid! I got somepn to say about this.” They -turned to see Sheriff Warburton standing in the doorway, a bandage -around his head. Back of him stood Dot, her pretty face wreathed in -smiles. The sheriff got out his handcuffs and approached the two -men, his eye on Billy Gee. Lemuel catching the meaning of the action -grinned broadly. - -“I always told myself, that I’d hang these nickel-plated doodads on -you some time, young feller,” said the sheriff gravely. “I’m goin’ -to, right now—perticular on account of what you jest said. Come -here, Dot!” He reached out and took the girl by the arm and brought -her alongside of Billy Gee. With a deft movement, he handcuffed them -together. “After Sunday, Billy, that’s the awful fix you’ll be in, -an’ that’s how _I_ square up with _you_. He’s a lucky dog, Dot,” he -added laughingly. - -Tinnemaha Pete, watching the proceedings with Mrs. Liggs, burst into -a loud cackle of mirth. - -“Son of a gun, Agatha! Did ye mark that? He ain’t sech a measly -skunk, as I thought he was. What’re cryin’ about, Agatha?” - -“I’m—I’m so happy, Pete,” she breathed, turning away. - -In the months that followed, the Huntington ranch vanished, save for -two fenced-in acres that held the house, outbuildings, and the cool, -old-fashioned garden with the trim little grave in one corner. The -townsite of Liggs sprang up mushroomlike and took its proud place on -the map of San Buenaventura County. The Billy Geerusalem claims -blossomed out, bonanzas, and the camp of Geerusalem lost its ranking -as the metropolis of Soapweed Plains. It never knew a railroad—even -as the elder Sangerly had avowed to Jule Quintell, now languishing -in the State penitentiary. - -Prosperity can never change the sterling members of the human -family, no more than may the powers of alchemy convert slag into -gold. They are still the same humble dwellers of the vast -Mohave—Tinnemaha Pete, quaint, timid old desert rat; Sheriff Bob -Warburton, big of soul and purposeful; achieving, ambitious Lex -Sangerly; Dick Lennox, mining engineer of merit. - -The dark days of uncertainty still remain green in the mind of -Lemuel Huntington. They remain green, too, in the mind of his -daughter, whose romantic brain worked out the destiny of her own -happiness. Nor can the shy little mother, who lived and suffered for -her wayward son, ever forget; nor that son, who found the turning -point in the realization that the price for a hunted animal could -not tempt her compassionate heart. - -All this and more has been narrated by Dot in her novel, which she -called “Billy Geerusalem,” and lovingly dedicated to the man who -came to her out of the violet and yellow scallop of hills which had -formed the background of all her romantic dreams. - -THE END. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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