So I piled up the difficulties and made it look bad to try. Anyway, I made ‘em change their minds, which I couldn’t of done if you’d been there to sort of urge ‘em on to get at Hugh. I made ‘em promise to get away as soon as they could and follow after me. So they’re going to stay behind me and—”
“And you and I?” queried the girl, vaguely groping toward his meaning.
“And you and I, Jerry, won’t be on the north road at all! We’ll be driving west as fast as the spurs will send the hosses! Ain’t it clear, and ain’t it a beauty? There was your father and Doone no better’n dead men, and here I’ve gotten ‘em off free and sound!”
It was all clear to her. Suddenly she cried, with a great impulse of thanksgiving: “Heaven bless you for it!”
“Let them bless you,” said the outlaw. “Because, except for you, they’d of been finished sure!”
“But you and I ride west, and your men ride north—Jack Moon, does it mean that you’ve broken away from them, that you never intend to ride with them again, that you’ve given up your life of crime?”
“It’s all according to what you want it to mean.”
“Ah,” she murmured, “if I could only trust you for half a minute! If I could only be sure of the thoughts that are going on in that wild, cruel mind of yours! Tell me, are you speaking true?”
“Can you ask that?” he said, dodging her swiftly. Then he cried with utter sincerity: “I’d make myself over a thousand times if one shape of me would get a single smile out of you, Jerry. Will you believe that?”
“After what I’ve seen—”
“You’ve seen nothing. Neither you nor anybody else has ever seen a thing! My real self is a buried self, girl! And they’s only one thing in the world that can make me what I ought to be.”
“I think I know what you mean,” she said faintly. “And—and in spite of myself I think you mean what you say. Otherwise, how could you dare to leave your men—to betray them in order to ride with me? Because, Jack Moon, if you have left them, if you are speaking the truth to me, there are some of them who will never leave your trail until they have run you down and killed you like a dog! You know that!”
“Ay, if they could run me down. But they can’t. That west road I start on is going to swing off to an east road before long, and you and I are going—”
“Back to Trainor?”
He winced, but then he went on glibly: “We’re going to follow it wherever you want it to be followed. But the first thing now is for you and me to get onto our hosses and ride as we never rode before. Will you come?”
“I’ll come.”
“And trust me?”
“What else can I do?”
“Then,” cried the outlaw, “I’ve started a new life.”
And, for the first time in his wild life, he meant what he said!
XXIV. PREPARATIONS
All unconscious of the fact that their leader, so long trusted, had at last betrayed them, the band of Jack Moon gathered around Silas Treat when the black-bearded giant strode out of the trees and stood before them.
“Where’s Moon?” asked one.
“Back with the girl. Going to put her out of the way while we plan to tackle the house. I told him he’d better knife the filly. That’s what he’ll do.”
“You’re a fool, Treat,” said Baldy McNair, who took greater liberties in his speech and manner than any other in the band. “You’re a fool and a swine. But the chief’s right. He’ll tie up the girl and leave her in the woods. No use having her around when we rush the house. And no use having her so near she can hear any yells. Has he got her far enough back so’s she won’t hear much?”
“Pretty near,” said Si Treat. “Back there in that little clearing up the hill. The trees would cut off most of the noise near the ground from this direction.”
“How long’ll it take him?”
“Not long, and he says for us to keep right on planning till he shows up.”
“We’ve made our plan. We’re going to scatter and rush the shack from all sides at once. The old boy,” Baldy went on to explain, “always figures that we ain’t got the gumption to do anything or plan anything while he’s away. Like as not he’s lying back there in the brush and laughing to himself because we sit around and do nothing, with dead Bud Kent lying here to urge us along. Well, boys, let’s up and show lack Moon that with him or without him we can get along. It’s time he was showed that, anyway! I say, let’s scatter. Best place to start from is the shack beside Ronicky’s. Well, let’s half of us get in there and the rest scatter out sort of promiscuous and get ready for the run. We’ll call in the other gents that are watching now, and then we’ll let drive. If them two in the shack ain’t got nine lives apiece, well salt ‘em away and plant ‘em under ground. Are you with me?”
There was a grumble of sullen acquiescence in answer, and the eight began to spread swiftly around the edges of the clearing, taking advantage of all shelter of the trees until they should be within short sprinting distance of the shack.
That hut, in the meantime, remained as silent and as black as though the two men who formerly occupied it had long since taken to flight, melting unseen into the forest by mysterious stealth.
As a matter of fact, they had been hard at work during most of the past hour. It was Ronicky who possessed the feverish urge to get out of the confining quarters of the shack and strive to break through the lines of the enemy by a surprise attack. But the sober warnings of his companion deterred him. As Hugh Dawn repeatedly pointed out, they were being watched all the time, no matter how hushed the silence around the clearing might be. They were being watched by eyes that squinted down the deadly length of rifle barrels, and if they left their shelter and the thick log walls which were strong enough to stop a revolver bullet at least, they would certainly go down before they had taken more than two steps from their place of refuge.
Ronicky Doone submitted.
“But it sure galls me,” he had remarked through his teeth, “to think of lying here and getting trapped like a rat! It sure galls me, Hugh. I’d rather die ten times fighting in the open than once behind the walls of a cage!”
The other had nodded, and, reaching through the darkness of the shack, he had laid his hand on the shoulder of his young friend and pressed it with a reassuring firmness. Indeed, Hugh was a rock of unperturbed strength during the entire crisis.
“We got the strong position,” he kept assuring Ronicky.
“But suppose they rush us? It ain’t more’n a couple of jumps to that nearest hut.”
“That’s right. But a gent can do a pile of shooting while somebody else is taking a couple of steps.”
