hurried on ahead of them, was already busy at twenty preparations for the night and the evening meal. The sunset was touching only the tops of the trees now. All beneath was swiftly deepening shadow.
“However,” she said as a parting shot, “I’m going to maintain that there are two types of freedom—yours and Ronicky’s!”
“You know him well enough to call him Ronicky?”
“Yes.”
“And he calls you Jerry!”
“Why not?”
“No harm. Well, I tell you what: I could take this Ronicky Doone and wind him around my finger. I could make him my man! I could get him into my crowd if I wanted to!”
She flushed with her anger.
“That’s simply impossible! Ronicky Doone? He’s the soul of everything honorable!”
“Actions speak, lady,” and Jack Moon grinned. “Suppose I was to go out and bring him into this camp!”
“You could only bring him dead!”
“That so? I’d bet on it, though.”
“As a member of your band?”
“That’s what I said. Have him in here sleeping right along with the rest of the boys. He’d take Harry Bush’s place!”
“You can’t do it, Jack Moon! I—unless you’re a hypnotist.”
“You’re weakening,” said the other coldly. “Must be kind of fond of this gent if you can’t believe anything wrong about him!”
“I’ll tell you this,” she said firmly. “If he came down here as a member of your band, I’d despise him with all my heart. I’d loathe him!”
“That’s hard on me,” remarked Jack Moon. “But it sounds to me like a bet. What say? Shall I go out and try to get him down here?”
“If you go to face him, you’d risk your life!”
“Not the first time. Besides, it’d be worth it.”
“How?”
“To see your face when I bring him in. Shall I try?”
“You’ll gain nothing from me, sir!” She was trembling with excitement. “But go out. Try him. If he’s as weak as that, then there’s no steady faith, no honesty, no truth in any man in the world! But how—how could you get him?”
“Ain’t there gold over yonder? Wouldn’t he like a share in it?”
“You’d buy him!”
“They say everybody has a price, and I can bid pretty high right now!”
“You’ll fail, Jack Moon!”
He laughed mockingly and turned abruptly on his heel and strode out into the shade of the trees.
XVI. BROKEN FAITH
His first hundred yards were made at a rapid pace, but after that, finding himself entirely alone and well out of possible observation from behind, he reduced his gait and went on more slowly, more cautiously, keeping a sharp lookout through the tree trunks around him. Indeed, so sensitive had he suddenly become that now and again he paused and whirled toward the movement of a wind-swayed sapling or the swing of a bough. His progress, however, was fairly steady. He paused only to break off a slender dead branch some six feet long, and at the top of this he tied a white handkerchief.
In this wise he broke from the trees and came into the clearing at the bottom of the hollow. He must now be well beyond earshot of the camp, and suddenly he began to shout: “Doone! Ronicky Doone! Oh, Doone!”
He repeated the call in a high and piercing wail several times, and yet it was strange that he should expect the man to come to what might well be considered a trap. Strange, too, that he should expect to find him so near the scene of danger. Yet at the third repetition of the call a voice spoke behind him.
“I’m here. What’s the racket about?”
He turned slowly, very slowly. It was a maxim with him that quick moves were very dangerous.
He found himself looking at Ronicky Doone, though the latter was so covered with a mottling of shadows that he was almost rendered invisible. It was a sort of protective coloration—or shadowing, to be more accurate.
“Been following me long?” said the outlaw, leaning on his branch.
“Only since you started away from the shacks,” said Ronicky.
“Well, well,” and Moon sighed, “you sure are handy in a forest. Must of learned young.”
“Tolerable.”
“Ain’t it kind of dangerous trusting yourself on foot, when we got so many men to cut in around you on hossback?”
As a reply Ronicky whistled very softly, so softly that it barely reached the ears of the bandit leader, and out of the denser night of the trees behind Ronicky came the form of Lou. She was almost lost in the sea of shadow. Only her head, with the pricking ears and the bright eyes, appeared at the shoulder of her master.
“By Jiminy!” exclaimed Jack Moon, smiling with an almost boyish pleasure. “That’s sure a hoss, that one of yours. Lou?”
“You’ve heard of her?”
“Everybody that’s heard of you has heard of her, if they have any ears to listen to folks’ talk,” said the other. “She’s handy herself, ain’t she? How come she don’t make any more noise going through a wood?”
“Training,” answered Ronicky Doone. “Took a pile of pains.”
“I reckon!”
“But now she knows enough not to step where the dead leaves are thick or on a branch or nothing like that. Besides, I’ve got her so’s she knows when she ain’t to make any noise like whinnying.”
“That must of took time, Ronicky!”
“About two years, training her every day.”
“You don’t say! Well, you sure are the out-beatingest gent for patience, Ronicky!”
The other returned no answer. It was very strange to hear them conversing in so frank a manner, making no mysteries with each other—the one asking simple questions, the other answering them with fully as much simplicity. One might have thought them old and familiar acquaintances. Neither had raised his voice since Ronicky answered the third call.
“How come you to foller so close?” went on Jack Moon.
“I’m
