 Chapter 7 of the Bells of San Juan this Libravox recording is in the public domain. The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory. The Home of the Cliff-Dwellers Those remaining ten minutes tried all that there was of endurance in Virginia Page. Often Norton, bidding her wait a moment, climbed onto some narrow ledge above her, and drawing the rope steadily through his hands, gave her what eight he could, often clinging with hand and foot. She thought breathlessly of the steep fall of Cliff, which the darkness hid from her eyes, but which grew ever steeper in her mind, as she struggled on. He had said, it would be easier in daylight, she wondered if after all it would not have been more difficult, could she have seen just what were the chances she was taking at every moment. But more and more she came to have utter faith in the quiet man going on before her, and in the piece of rope which Stretch taught between them. And now, said Norton at last, when once more he had drawn her up to him, and they stood close together upon a narrow ledge, we've got a good safe trail underfoot. Good news, eh? But as he moved on now he kept her hand locked tight in his own. Her good safe trail was a rough ledge, running almost horizontally along the Cliff side. Its transcaresly perceptibly upward, within twenty steps, it led them into a wide V-shaped fissure in the rocks. Then came a sort of cup in a nest of rugged peaks, its bottom filled with imprisoned soil worn from the spires above. As Norton, relinquishing her hand, went forward swiftly, she heard a man's voice saying weakly, Are you all right? I came as soon as I could, Brocky, Norton standing close to a big, out-jutting boulder. Upon the far side of the cup was bending over the cattleman. I'm making out, old man. I sure been havin' one hell of a nice little party, grunted Brocky lain faintly. Man, so damn close to heaven on these mountaintops. Who's that? Virginia came forward quickly and went down on her knees at lain's side. I'm Dr. Page, she said quietly. Now, if you'll tell me where you're hit, and if Mr. Norton will get me some sort of a light, a fire will have to do. Another little grunt came from Brocky Lane's tortured lips, this time a wordless expression of his unmeasured amazement. I don't want Patton in on this, Norton explained. Miss Page is a doctor, just got into San Juan today. She's a cousin of Engel, and she knows her business a whole lot better than Patton does, besides. She gets fire-started immediately, Mr. Norton asked Virginia somewhat sharply. Mr. Lane has waited long enough as it is. I'll be damned, said Brocky Lane weakly, and then more weakly still in a voice which broke despite a manful effort to make it both steady and careless. I'll never cuss like that, unless I'm delirious anyhow. I'll never cuss when there's a lady. She'll keep perfectly still. Virginia admonished him quickly. I'll do all the talking that is necessary. Where's the wound? You don't have a light, do you?" Brocky insisted on being informed. You see, we can't have it. Mom hurt. You want to know? Mostly right here on my side. Virginia's hands found the rude bandage damp and sticky. It's nonsense not having a light, she said, turning toward Norton. No. A wooden man nods as nothing is a rod. How are we going to have a fire when my matches are all gone and Rod's matches? Mr. Norton, Virginia cutting crisply. In spite of your friend's talk and in spite of the bluff he's putting up, he has pretty badly hurt. You give me some sort of a light. I don't care if they see it down at San Juan, or you shoulder the response building. Which is it? Norton turned and was gone into the darkness. To Virginia's eyes it seemed that he was swallowed up by the cliffs themselves, as though they had opened and accepted him and closed after him. She's supposed that he had gone to seek what scanty dry fuel one might find here, but in a moment he was back, carrying a lighted lantern. Look here, Rod! Expatulated Brocky. Shut up, Brocky. Answered Norton quietly. And passing the lantern to the girl. You'll carry that, I'll carry Brocky. It's only a few steps, and I won't hurt him. We can make him more comfortable there, and besides, we can't leave him out here in the sun to-morrow. Somewhat mystified, Virginia took the lantern and her own surgical case from the sheriff and watched him stoop and gather the tall form of his friend into his arms. Then going the way he indicated straight across the tiny flat. She lighted the way. She heard the wounded man groan once, then his teeth set to guard his lips. Brocky was silent. For a dozen steps she came to a steep-sided narrow chasm, giving passageway not six feet wide, which twisted this way and that before her. Look out! cried Norton sharply. Watch where you step now! Go slow! Virginia swinging her lantern up shoulder-high, looking ahead, grew instantly stock still. A shiver tingling along her spine. The narrow defile through which she had passed had led out of the ring of peaks, and now abruptly debauched into nothingness. As she had turned with the twisting passageway, expecting to see another wall of rock before her, she saw instead the sky filled with stars. She stood almost at the edge of a sheer precipice. Thought a light to the left now, commanded Norton. See what looks like the entrance to a cave? We go in there. She walked on, moving slowly, warily, a little faint from the one startled view before her. Her body tight pressed to the rocks upon the left. Her feet only a pace from the edge of the cliff. Now she saw the mouth of the cave, a black ragged hole just above a flat rock, which thrust itself outward so that it seemed hanging, balanced insecurely over the abyss. By the pale rays of the lantern she saw the fairly smooth, gently sloping floor of the cavern. Then, stooping, she passed in, turned and held the light for Norton. She came on steadily, burying his burden lightly. Still holding the lantern for him, turning as he came closer, she saw that the cave was lofty and wide, that it ran further back into the mountain than her lantern-draze could follow. Back there, said Norton, you'll find blankets. I'll hold him while you spread some out for him. She hurried toward the further end of the cave, came to a tumble of blankets against the wall, dragged out two or three, spreading them quickly, and then while Norton was stooping to lay Brocky's limp form down, she busied herself with her case. He has fainted, she said quickly. I'd like to examine the wound before he is conscious. It's going to hurt him. Pour me some water into any sort of basin or cup or anything else you've got. Then stand by to help me if I need you. Hold the lantern for me. Swiftly, but Norton marked with, what, skillful fingers. She removed the bandage and made her examination, Norton squatting upon his heels at her side, holding the lantern after one frowning look at the wound, kept his eyes fixed upon her face. Brocky Lane was near his death, and the sheriff knew it after that one look. His life lay, perhaps, in the hands of this girl. Norton had brought her when he might have brought Patton. Had he chosen wrongly? He had noted her hands before. Now they seem to him the most wonderful hands ever possessed by either man or woman. Long sure, quick, sensitive, utterly capable, he thought of Catelyn Patton's hands, thick, a little inclined to be flabby. Over that bottle, she directed goalie. One tablet into the water, that box has cotton and gauze in it. Don't touch them. I want everything clean. Just open the box and set it where I can get it. One by one she gave her directions and the man obeyed swiftly and unquestingly. He watched her probe the wound, saw her eyes narrow, knew that she had made her diagnosis. As she washed the ugly hole in the flesh and made her own bandage, Brocky Lane was wincing, his eyes again open. Both men were watching her now. The same look in each eager pair of eyes, but until she had done, and with Norton's help, had made Lane as comfortable as possible upon his crude bed, she gave no answer to their mute pleading. Then she sat down upon the stone floor, caught her knees up in her clapped hand, and looked long and searchingly into Brocky Lane's face. Cowboy struggled with his muscles and triumphed over them, summoning a sick grin as he muttered. Am I good? Take all this trouble. I'm sure a hundred times obliged. And she cut in abruptly. You mean to tell me that you shot that man after he had put this hole in you, and then you made him crawl out of the brush and come to you? I sure did, run at Brocky, and if my aim hadn't been sort of bad, me being all upset this way, I wouldn't have just winged ol' moraga that way either, when he's all geared up, and I'm all well again. Then he broke off and again his eyes, like Norton's, asked their question. This time she answered it, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. Mr. Brocky Lane, I congratulate you on three things. Your physique first, your luck second, and third, your nerve. They are a combination that is hard to beat. I am very much inclined to the belief that in a month or so, you'll be about as good as new. Norton expelled a deep breath of relief. He realized suddenly that whatever this gray-eyed, strong-handed girl had said, would have had his fullest credence, Brocky's grin, grew a shade less strained. When you had that combination, he muttered, for sure enough, Angel, come to Dr. a man. Gro, he's delirious again, laughed Virginia. Give him a little brandy, Mr. Norton, then a smoke if he's dying for one. Then we'll try to get a little sleep, all of us. You see, I had virtually no sleep on the train last night, and today has been a big day for me. If I'm going to do your friend any good, I've got to get three winks. And unless you're made of reinforced sheet iron, same for you. You can lie down close to Mr. Lane so that he can wake you easily if he needs us now. And she rose, still smiling, but suddenly looking unutterably weary. Where's the guest chamber? She did not tell them that not only last night, but the night before, she had set up in a day-coach, saving every cent she could out of the few dollars which were to give her and her brother a new start in the world. There were many things which Virginia Page knew how to keep to herself. This way, said Norton, taking the lantern, we can really make you more comfortable than you'd think. At the very least he could count confidently on treating her to a surprise. She followed him for forty or fifty feet toward the end of the cave, and to an irregular hole in the side wall, through this and into another cave, smaller than the first, but as big as an ordinary room. The floor was strewn with the short needles of the mountain pine. As she turned, looking about her, she noted first another opening in a wall, suggesting still another cave. Then, feeling a faint breath of the night air on her cheek, she saw a small rip in the outer shell of rock and through it the stars thick in the sky. May you sleep well in Jim Galloway's hangout, said Norton lightly. May you not be troubled with the ghost of the old cliff-dwellers whose house this was before our time. May you always remember that if there is anything in the world that I can do for you, all you have to do is let me know. Good night. Good night, she said. He had left a lantern-bore as she placed it on the floor and went across her strange bedroom to the hole in the rock through which the stars were shining. It seemed impossible that those stars out there were the same stars which had shown upon her all of her life long. She could fancy that she had gone to sleep in one world and now had awakened in another, coming into a far unknown territory where the face of the earth was changed, where men were different, where life was new, and though her body was tired, her spit-art did not droop. Rather, an old exhilaration was in her blood. She had stepped from an old, outworn world into a new one, and with a quick stir of the pulses she told herself that life was good, where it was strenuous and that she was glad that Virginia Page had come to San Juan, and now she mused sleepily when, at last, she lay down upon heaped-up pine needles and drew over her the blanket Norton had brought. I am going to sleep in the hangout of Jim Galloway in the old home of the Quick-Follers. Virginia Page, you are a downright lucky girl. Whereupon she blew out the lantern, smiled faintly at the stars shining upon her, sighed wearily, and went to sleep. CHAPTER VIII Jim Galloway's Game As full consciousness of her surroundings returned slowly to her, Virginia Page at first thought that she had been awakened by the aroma of boiling coffee, then sitting up wide awake. She knew that Norton had come to the doorway of her separate chamber and had called. She threw off her blankets and got up hastily. It was still dark. She imagined that she had merely dozed and that Norton was summoning her because Rocky Lane was worse. A dim glow shone through the cave entrance, that flickering, uncertain light eloquent of a campfire. As her hands went swiftly and femininely to her hair she heard Norton's voice in a laughing remark. Only then she knew that she had slept three or four hours, that the dawn was near, that it was time for her to return to San Juan. Good morning, she said brightly. Norton, squatting by the fire, frying pan in hand, turned and answered her nod. Rocky Lane, flat on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head, his cigarette in his mouth, twisted a little where he lay his eyes eager upon his doctor. Virginia came on into the full light, striking the pine needles from her riding habit. Time to eat and ride, said Norton, turning again to his task. Bacon and coffee and exercise. Have you rested? Perfectly. And Mr. Lane? Eh? Said Rocky? Really fine. Norton gave her a cup of warm water to wash her hands. Then she made a second, very careful examination of Rocky's wound, cleansing it and adjusting a fresh bandage. I want to start in half an hour, said the sheriff. There'll be light enough, then, so that we can take time getting down to the horses and get not enough light to show us up to a chance early rider down below. Then we'll swing off to the west, make a wide bend, ride through Lost Astralis, and get back into San Juan when we please. That is, you will. I'll leave you outside at Lost Astralis, showing you the way. And while you eat, I'm going to tell you something. About Galloway? She asked quickly. Explaining what you meant by Galloway's hangout? Yes, more than that. For a little she stood, looking at him very gravely, then she spoke in utter frankness. Mr. Norton, I think I can see your position. You were so circumstance through Mr. Lane's being hurt that you had to bring either Dr. Patton or me here. You decided it would be wiser to bring me. There is something of a compliment in that, isn't there? You don't know, Caleb Patton yet, growlbrocky a bit savagely. Already it seems to me, she went on, that you have a pretty hard road to hoe. It is evident that you have discovered a sort of Thieves headquarters here, that for your own reasons you don't want it known that you've found it. To say that I am not curious about it all would be talking nonsense, of course. And yet I can assure you that I hold you under no obligation whatever to do any explaining. You're the sheriff, and your job is to get results, not be polite to the ladies. But Norton shook his head. You know what you know, he said seriously. I think that if you know a little more you will more readily understand why we must insist on keeping our mouths shut. All of us. In that case, return the girl, and before you boil that coffee into any more hopelessly black concoction that it already is, I'm ready to drink mine, and listen. Coffee, Mr. Lane? I haven't mine, thanks, answered Brocky. Spending a yarn, Rod. Norton put down his frying pan, the bacon brown and crisp, and rose to his feet. You'll come this way a moment, Miss Page, he asked, to begin with, seeing as believing. She followed him, as she had last night, back into the cave in which she had slept. But Norton did not stop here. He went on. Virginia, still following him, came to that other hole in the rock wall which she had noted by the lantern light. In here, he said, just look. He swept a match across his thigh, holding it up for her. She came to his side and looked in. First she saw a number of small boxes, innocent appearing affairs, with suggested soda-crackers. Beyond them was something covered with a blanket. Norton stepped by her and jerked the covering aside. Startled, puzzled by what she saw. She looked at him, wonderingly, placed neatly, lying side by side, with their metal surfaces winking back at the light of Norton's match were a number of rifles, a score of 50 perhaps. Looks like a young revolution. She cried, her gaze held, her eyes fascinated by the unexpected. You've seen about everything now, he told her, the red ember of a burned-out match dropping to the floor. Those boxes contain cartridges. Now let's go back to Brocky. They'll see that you've been here. I'll come back in a minute with the lantern. I want a further chance to look things over. Then I'll put the blanket back and see that not even that charred match gives us away. And we'd better be eating and getting started. With a steaming tin of black coffee before her, a brown piece of bacon between her fingers, she forgot to eat or drink while she listened to Norton's story. At the beginning it seemed incredible. Then her thoughts sweeping back over the experiences of those last twenty-four hours, her eyes having before them the picture of a sheriff grim-faced and determined a wounded man lying just beyond the fire, the rough, rudely arched walls and ceiling of a caveman's dwelling about her, she deemed that what Norton knew and suspected was but the thing to be expected. Jim Galloway's a big man, Sheriff said thoughtfully. Very big man in his way. My father was after him for a long time. I have been after him ever since my father's death, but it is only recently that I have come to appreciate Jim Galloway's caliber. That's why I could never get him with the goods on. I've been looking for him in the wrong places. I estimated that he was making money with the Casablanca in a similar house which he operates in Pozo. I thought that his entire game lay in such layouts in a bit of business now and then like the robbing of the Lothpalmos man. But now I know that most of these lesser jobs are not even Galloway's affair. If he lets some of his crowd like the kid or Antone or Morega put them across and keep the spoils, often enough in a word, while I've been looking for Jim Galloway in the brush, he's been doing his stunt in the Big Timber. Now the look in Norton's eye suggested that he had forgotten the girl to whom he was talking, and now I've picked up his trail. That's something, interposed Rocky Lane, a flash of fire in his own eyes, considering that no man has ever known better than Jim Galloway out of cover tracks. You see, continued Norton, Jim Galloway's bigness consists very largely of these two things. He knows how to keep his hands off the little jobs, and he knows how to hold men to him. The chispy of Bloth-Palmos goes down in Casablanca, his money, perhaps a thousand dollars, finds its way into the pockets of Kid Rickard, Antone, and maybe two or three other men. Jim Galloway sees what goes on and does no petty haggling over the spoils. He gets a strangled whole on the men who do the job, it costs him nothing but another lie or so, and he has them where he can count on them later on when he needs such men. Neither. If they are arrested, Jim Galloway and Galloway's money come to the front. They are defended in court by the best lawyers to be had. Men are bribed, and they go free. As a result of such labors on Galloway's part, I'd say at a rough guess that there are from a dozen to fifty men in the county right now, or his men, body and soul. With a gang like that at his back, a man of Galloway's type has grown pretty strong, strong enough to plan, yes, and by the Lord carry out. The kind of game he's playing right now. A half-breed took sick and died a short time ago, a man who might never set eyes on particularly. It happened that he was a superstitious devil and that he was the second or third cousin of Ignacio Chavez. He was quite positive that unless the bells rang properly for him he would go to hell the shortest way. So he sent for Ignacio and wound up by talking a good deal. Ignacio passed the word on to me, and that was the first inkling I had of Galloway's real game. In a word, this is what it is. He plans on one big stroke, and then a long rest and quiet enjoyment of the proceeds. He'll have seen the rifles. He'll arm a crowd of his best men, or as worst as you please. Booped down on San Juan, robbed the bank, shooting down just as many men as happened to be in the way, rushed in automobiles to Pozo and Keppelstown, stick up the banks there, levy on the Las Palmos mines, and then steer straight to the border. And if all worked according to schedule, the papers across the country would record the most daring raid across the border yet, blaming the whole fare on the detachment of gringo-hating Mexican bandits and revolutionists. Virginia stared at him half incredulously, but the look in Norton's eyes, the same look in Rocky Lane's, assured her. Why do you wait, then? She asked sharply. If you know all this, why don't you arrest the man and his accomplices now, before it's too late? And had the whole country laugh at me, where's my evidence? Just the word of a dead Indian, repeated by another Indian, and a few rifles hid in the mountains, even if we proved the rifles were Galaways and I don't believe we could, how would we set about proving his intention? No, I've talked it all over with the district attorney, and we can't move yet. We've got our chance at last, the chance to watch and get Jim Galaway with the goods on. But we've got to wait until he is just ready to strike, and then we're going to put a stop to lawlessness in San Juan once and for all. But, she objected breathlessly, if he should strike before you ready? It is our one business and life that he doesn't do it. We know what he's up to, we've found his hiding place, we shall keep an eye on it night and day. He doesn't know that we have been here. No one knows by ourselves. You see now, Miss Page, why I couldn't bring Patton here? Patton talks too much, and Galaway knows every thought in Patton's mind. And you understand how important it is for you to forget that you've ever been here. She sat silent, staring into the embers of the dying fire. The thing which I can't understand, she said presently, is that if Jim Galaway is the big man that you say he is, he should do as much talking as he must have done, that he should have told his plans to such a man as the Indian who told them to Ignacio Chavez. But he didn't tell all of this, Norton informed her. The Indian died without guessing what I've told you. He merely knew that the rifles were here because Galaway had employed him to bring them, and because he was the man who told Galaway of his hiding place. He believed that Galaway's whole scheme was to smuggle a lot of arms in ammunition south and across the border, selling to the Mexicans. But from what little he could tell Chavez and from what we found out ourselves, the whole play becomes pretty obvious. No, Galaway hasn't been talking. He has been playing as safe as a man can, upon such business as this. His luck was against him, that's all, when the Indian died and insisted on being wrung out by the San Juan Bells. There's always that little element of chance in any business, legitimate or otherwise. And now you'll finish your breakfast. I'll show you a view you'll never forget, and then we'll hit the trail. But Mr. Lane, you don't intend to leave him here all alone. He will get well with the proper attention, but he must have that. Then an hour or so, Norton told her, Tom Cutter will be back with one of Brocky's cowboys. Then move Lane into a canyon on the other side of the mountain. Oh, I know he ought to be moved, but what else can we do besides Brocky insist on it? Then they'll arrange to take care of him, necessary. We'll come out again to-morrow night. Of course, he said, she went to Brocky and held out her hand to him. I understand now I think why you would refuse to die, no matter how badly you were hurt unless you had helped Mr. Norton finish the work. You have set your hands too. It's an honor, Mr. Lane, to have a patient like you. Whereupon Brocky Lane grew promptly crimson and tongue-tied. And now the view, Mr. Norton, and I am ready to go. We led our way to the outer edge from which last night they had entered the cave. Daylight, you can see half round the world from here, he said as they stood with their backs to the rock. Now you can get an idea of what it's like. Below her was the chasm formed by the cliff, standing sheer and fronting other tall cliffs, looming blackly. The stars beginning to fade in the sky above them. Norton pushed a stone outward with his boot. She heard a strike, rebound, strike again. And then there was silence. When the falling stone reached the bottom, no sound came back to tell her how far it had dropped. Turning a little to look southward, she saw the cliff standing further and further back on each side, so that the eye might travel between them and out over the lower slopes in the distant stretches of level land, which, more now than ever, seemed a great limitless sea. The stars were pailing rapidly. The first glint of the new day was in the air. The world lay shadowy and silent and lifeless, softened in the seeming but as in the daytime, slumberous under an atmosphere of brooding mystery. When you told me last night, when you put your rope around me and said I might fall a half dozen feet, had we fallen it would have been a hundred feet many a time, you said quietly. But I knew we wouldn't fall, and looking into her face with an expression in his eyes, which the shadows hid, I shouldn't have sought to minimize the danger to you had I known you as well as I think I know you now. Thank you, she said lightly. But she was conscious of a warm, pleasurable glow throughout her entire being. It was good to live life in the open. It was good to stand up on the clip tops with a man like Roderick Norton. It was good to have such a man speak thus. Five minutes later they were making their way down the cliffs towards their horses. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of the Bells of San Juan. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory. Chapter 9. Young Page Comes to Town. Here and there throughout the great stretches of the sun smitten southwest are spots which still remain practically unknown, wherein men come seldom or not at all, where no man cares to tarry, barren mountains that are blistering hot, suck dry, long ago of their last vestige of moisture, endless drifts of sand, where the silent animal life is scanty, where the fang cactus and stubborn mesquite fight their eternal battles for life, maces and lomas, little known shunned by humanity. True men have been here, some few poking into the dust of ancient ruins, more seeking minerals, and now and then one playing the law. To be followed relentlessly by such as Roderick Norton, and yet there is evidence, if one looks, that this desolate shunned land once had its teeming tribes in its green fields. Virginia and Roderick, having made their hazardous way down the cliffs and to their horses in silence, found their tongues loosened as they rode westward in the soft dawn. Virginia put her questions, and he as best he could answered them. She asked eagerly of the old cliff dwellers, and he shrugged his shoulders, Aztecs, were they, Toltecs, what you in Sabay? There were a people of mystery who had left behind them a silence like that of the desert wastes themselves. Once they came, where they went, and why, must remain questions with many answers, and therefore none at all. But he could tell her a few things of the ancient civilization, and a civilization it truly was, and of the signs left for posterity to puzzle over. They had built cities, and the ruins of their pueblos still stand scattered across the weary scorched land. They constructed mile after mile of aqueducts whose lines are followed to-day by reclamation engineers. They irrigated and cultivated their land. They made abodes high up in the mountains, dwelling in caves, enlarging their dwellings, shaping homes and fortresses and lookouts. And just so long as the mountains themselves last, will men come now and then into such places that, as were in Jim Galloway's rifles lay hidden. I have lived in this part of the world all but two or three years of my life, said Norton at the end. And yet I never heard of these particular caves until a very few days ago. I don't believe that there are 10 people living who know of them, so Galloway, hiding his stuff out there, was playing just as safe as a man can play, when he plays the game crooked anyway. I want to guess something when he misses Moraga. I don't think so, Norton shook his head. Tom Cutter and Brocky made Moraga talk. His job was to keep an eye on this end, but he was commissioned also to make a trip over the county line. First thing Jim Galloway will hear will be that Moraga got drunk and into a scrape, and was taken in by Sheriff Roberts. Then I think that Galloway himself will slip out of San Juan himself some dark night and climb the cliffs to make sure. When he finds everything absolutely as it was left, then time passes and nothing is done. I think he will replace Moraga with another man and figure that everything is all right. Why shouldn't he? From Galloway and Moraga, they got back to a discussion of the ancient peoples of the desert, venturing surmise for surmise, finding that their stimulated fancies winged together, daring to construct for themselves something of the forgotten annals of a forgotten folk who, perhaps, were living in walled cities while Old Egypt was building her pyramids. Then abruptly, in a patch of tall mesquite, Norton reigned in his horse and stalked. You understand why I must leave you here, he said. Yonder, beyond those trees, straight ahead. You will see it from that little ridge is Las Estralas, a town of a dozen houses. But before you get there you will come to the house where old Ramaras, a half-breed, lives. Remember, if you are missed in San Juan, Strav will say that you have gone to see Ramaras. He is actually sick, by the way. Maybe you can do something for him. His shack is in those cotton woods this side of Las Estralas. You'll find Ignacio there, too. We'll go back to San Juan with you, and once again, thank you. He put out his hand, she gave him hers, and for a moment they sat looking at each other gravely, then Norton smiled a pleasant, boyish smile. Her lips curved at him deliciously, he touched his hat, and was gone, and she, riding slowly, turned praises toward Las Estralas. From Las Estralas, an unkept, ugly village, strangely named, it was necessary to ride some fifteen miles through sand and scrub before coming again into San Juan. Virginia Page sincerely glad that she had made her call upon Ramaras and was suffering painfully from an acute stomach trouble and whose distress she could partially alleviate, made the return ride in the company of Ignacio. But first, from Ramaras's baking hobble, the Indian conducted her to another where a young woman with a baby a week old needed her. So it was well on in the afternoon and with a securely established alibi that she rode by the old mission and to the hotel, as in Ignacio rode listlessly away with the horses, as innocent looking a lazy beggar as the world ever knew. Virginia caught a glimpse of a white skirt and cool sunshade coming up the street. Florence Engle, she thought, who no doubt will cut me dead if I give her the opportunity. A little hurdly, she turned in at the hotel door and went to her room. She had removed hat and gauntlets and was repairing for a bath and a change of clothing when a light knock sounded on her door, the rap, preceded by a quick little steps down the hall, was essentially feminine. Hello, Cousin Virginia, said Florence, may I come in? Virginia brought her in, gave her a chair and regarded her curiously. The girl's face was flushed in pink, her eyes were bright and quite gay and untroubled. Her whole air, genuinely friendly. Last night Virginia had judged her to be about seventeen. Now she looked a mere child. I was perfectly nasty last night, wasn't I? Florence remarked as she stood her sunshade by her chair and smiled engagingly. Oh, I know it, just a horrid little cat, but then I'm that most of the time. I came all this way and all in this dust, and he'd just to ask you to forgive me, will you? For the moment Virginia was non-pulsed, but Florence only laughed, clasped her hand somewhat effectively, and ran on, her words tumbling out in helter-skelter fashion. Oh, I know I'm spoiled and I'm selfish and I mean, I suppose, and oh, dear, I'm as jealous as anything, but I'm ashamed of myself this time. Phew! You ought to have listened in on that party after you left. If you could have heard Mama scold me and Papa jaw me about the way I acted, it would have made you almost sorry for me. But you weren't horrid at all, Virginia broke in at last. Her heart suddenly warming to this very obviously spoiled futile, but none the less likable flurry. You mustn't talk that way, and if your parents made you come. It hadn't Florence said comely. They couldn't. Nobody ever made me do anything. That's what's the matter with me. I came because I wanted to. As the men say, I wanted to square myself and would you believe it. This is the third time I've called Mr. Straub. Kept telling me that you had gone to see old Joe Ramirez. Isn't he the awfulest little pirate you ever saw? And the dirtiest. I don't see how you can go near a man like that, even if he is dying. Honestly, I don't. But you must do all kinds of things being a doctor. Her clasp hands tightened. She put her head of fluffy hair to one side and looked at Virginia with such frank wonder in her eyes that Virginia colored under them and ran on flurry for stalling a popsible interruption. I was ready to poke fun at you last night just for being something capable and splendid. There was my jealousy again, I suppose. You ought to have heard Papa on that score. Look here, my fine miss, if you could just be something worthwhile in the world, if you could do as much good in all of your silly life as Virginia Page does every day of hers, and so forth until he was ready to burst and Mama was ready to cry and I was ready to bite him. She trilled off in a burst of laughter which was eloquent of the fact that Florence Engle, be her faults, what they might, was not the one to hold a grudge. I'm sorry, said Virginia, smiling a little. If on my account you were just going to clean up, weren't you? Flory contritely. You look as hot and dusty as anything, my what pretty hair you have. I'll bet it comes down to your waist, doesn't it? You ought to see mine when I take it down. It's like the picture of the bushwhackers. You know what I mean? From South Africa or somewhere, you know? Only, of course, mine's a prettier color. Sometimes I'll come and comb yours for you when you're tired out from curing sick Indians. But now, as she jumped to her feet, I'll go out on the porch while you get dressed and then you come out, will you? It's cool under the awning, and I'll have Mr. Straff bring us some cool lemonade. But first you do forgive me, don't you? Virginia's prompt assurance was incomplete when Flory flitted out, banging the door after her headed towards the lounging chairs on the veranda. You pretty thing, exclaim, as Flory as Virginia joined her as coolly and feminally dressed, if not quite as fluffily as the banker's daughter. Oh, but you're quite the most stunning creature that ever came into San Juan. Oh, I know all about myself. Don't you suppose I've stood in front of a glass by long hours wishing? It was a wishing glass all the time, and I could turn a pug nose into a Grecian. I'm pretty. You're simply beautiful. Look here, my dear, Laf Virginia, taking the chair which Flory had drawn close up to her in the shade against the adobe wall. You have already made amends. It isn't necessary to. I haven't half finished, cried Flory emphatically. You see, it's a way of mine to do things just by halves and quit there. But today it is different. Today I'm going to square myself. It's one reason why I treated you so catishly last night, because you were so madly good to look upon, through a man's eyes, you know, and that's about all the counts anyway, isn't it? Another reason was that you came in with Ronnie, and he looks so contented. Do you wonder that I am just wild about him? Isn't he a perfect dear? Flory's utter frankness, disconcerted Virginia, the confession of wildness about San Juan's sheriff. Followed by the assertion of his perfect dearness, was made in bright frankness. Flory's voice lowered no-wit through Julius's strove as he the moment he was coming down the veranda, bearing a tray of glasses. Virginia was not without gratitude that strove lingered a moment and bantered with Flory when he departed. She sought to switch the talk in another direction, but Flory, sipping her tall glass and setting aside, was before her. You see, it was double-barreled jealousy, so I did rather well not to fly at you and tear your eyes out, didn't I? Just because you and he came in together, as if every time a man and girl walk down the street together, it means they are going to get married. But you see, Roddy, and I have known each other ever since I can remember, and I have asked myself a million times if some day we are going to be Mr. and Mrs. Roderick Norton. And there are times when I think we are. You have a long time ahead of you, haven't you, Florence? Before you have to answer a question like that, ask Virginia musically. Because I'm so young! cried Flory. Oh, I don't know. Girls marry young here. Now there is Tina, as is our cook's sister. She has two babies already, and she is only four months older than I am. And, look, Vergy, there is the most terrible creature in the world. It is Kid Rickard. He killed the Los Palmos man. You know, I am not going even to look at him. I hate him worse than that calipatin. And that's like saying I hate Strickland worse than arsenic, isn't it? But who in the name of all that is wonderful is the man with him? Isn't he the handsomeest thing I never saw him before? He's from outside. Vergy, can you tell that fashionable cut of his clothes? And by the way he walks in, isn't he distinguished? It is Elmer, exclaimed Virginia, staring at the two figures which were slowly approaching from the southern end of the street. When did he get here? I didn't expect him. Then she chose to forget all save the essential fact that her baby brother was here and ran out to the sidewalk calling to him. Hello, is this? Returned Elmer nonchalantly, he was a thin, anemic-looking young fellow a couple of years younger than Virginia, who affected a swagger and gloves and who had a cough which was insistent but which he strove to disguise and yet Flory's hyperbowl had not been entirely without warrant. He had something of Virginia's fine profile, a look of her in his eyes, the stamp of good blood upon him. He suffered his sister to kiss him, meantime turning his eyes with a faint sign of interest to the fair girl on the veranda. Flory smiled. Sis, said Elmer, this is Mr. Rickard, Mr. Rickard shake hands with my sister, Miss Page, feeling of pure loathing, swept over the girl as she turned to look into Kid Rickard's sullen eyes and degenerate, cruel face. But since the kid was a couple of paces removed and was slow about coming forward not so much as raising his hand to his wide hat, she nodded at him and managed to say a quiet noncommittal. How do you do? Then she slipped her arm through Elmer's. Come, Elmer, she said hastily. I want you to know Miss Florence Engle. She is a sort of cousin of ours. Sure, said Elmer offhandedly. Come on, Rickard. But the kid, standing upon no ceremony, had drawn his hat a trifle lower over his eyes and turned his shoulder upon them, continuing along the street in his slouching walk, Elmer summoning youth's supreme weapon of an affected boredom, yawned, stifled his little cock, and went with Virginia to meet Florence. Florence giggled over the introduction, then grew abruptly as grave as a matron of seventy, and tactuously observed that Mr. Page had a very bad cold. How could one have a cold in weather like this, whereupon Mr. Page, glared at her belligently, noted her little row of curls revised as first opinion of her, set her down not only as a cousin, but as a crazy kid beside, and removed half a dozen steps to a chair. I don't thank much of your friends, remarked Florence, sensing sudden opposition and flying half way to meet it. Elmer Page produced a very new, unsullied pipe from his pocket, and filled it with an air, while Virginia looked on curiously. Having done so, and having drawn up one trouser leg to save the crease, crossed the leg, and at last put the pipe's stem into his mouth, he regarded Flory from the cool and serene height of his superior age. If you refer to Mr. Rickert, you said aloofly, I may say that he is not a friend yet. I just met him this afternoon, but, although he hasn't had the social advantages, perhaps still he is a man of parts. Flory sniffed and tossed her head Virginia bitter lips and watched them. Then, spoking too many sigs, I guess, sis, Elmer remarked at propose of the initial observation of Miss Ingle, which still wrangled, got her regular cigarette fiends cough, gave him up, hitting the pipe now. If you knew, said Flory spitefully, that Mr. Rickert, as you call him, had just murdered a man yesterday, what would you say then, I wonder? There was a sparkle of excitement in Elmer's eyes as he swung about to answer. Murdered, you challenged. You've heard just one side of it, of course, Bisbee got drunken and insulted Mr. Rickert. They call him the kid, you know. Say, sis, he's had a life for you. Full of adventure, all kinds of sport, and Bisbee shot first, too, but the kid got him. He concluded triumphantly. Galloway told me all about it, and what a blundering, rummy, the fool's sheriff is. Galloway, quarried Virginia uneasily. You know him too already? Sure, replied Elmer. He's a good sort, too. You like him. Ask him around. For goodness sake, Elmer, when did you get to San Juan? Have you been here a week or just a few hours? I ain't got any on the stage at noon, of course, but it doesn't take a man all year to get acquainted in town this size. A man, giggled Flory. I can see, laughed Virginia, that you two are going to be more kin than kind to each other. You'll be quarreling in another moment. Flory looked delighted at the prospect. Elmer yawned and brooded over his pipe. But out of the tail of his eye he took stock again of her blonde prettiness, and she, ready from the beginning, to make fun of him, repeated to herself the words she had used to Virginia. But he is handsome and distinguished-looking. CHAPTER X Virginia Page found time passing swiftly in San Juan. Within two weeks she came almost forget how she had heard a rattle of pistol shots, how the slow sobbing of a bell in the mission garden had bemoaned a life gone in a fresh crime upon a man's soul. At the end of a month it seemed to her that she had dreamed that ride through the night with Roderick Norton, climbing the cliffs, ministering to a stricken man in the forsaken abode of ancient cliff-dwellers. She was like one marooned upon a tiny island in an immense sea, who has experienced the crisis of shipwreck and now finds existence suddenly resolved into a quiet struggle for the maintenance of life. That and a placid expectation, as another might have waited through the long, quiet hours for the sign of a white sail or a black plume of smoke, so did she wait for the end of a tale whose beginning had included her. That the long days did not drag was due not so much to that which happened about her as to that which occurred within her. She carried responsibility upon each shoulder. Her life was in the shaping and she and none of them must make it what it would be. Her brother's character was at that unstable stage when it was ready to run into the mould. She had brought him here from the city to the rim of the desert. The step had been her doing, nobodies but hers, and she had come here far less for the sake of Elmer's pages caught than for the sake of his manhood. He wanted him to grow to be a man one could be proud of. There were times when his eyes evaded her and she feared the outcome. He is just a boy, she told herself, seeking courage. It seemed such a brief time ago that she had blown his nose for him and washed his face. She made excuses for him but did not close her eyes to the truth. The good old saw that boys will be boys, failed to make of Elmer, all that she would have him. Further to this consideration was another matter which filled the hours for her. The few dollars with which she had established herself in San Juan marched in steady precision, out of her purse, and fewer other dollars came in to take their places. The Andean Ramirez, whose stomach trouble she had mitigated, came full of gratitude and Casablanca whiskey and paid la senora doctor as handsomely as he could. He gave her his unlimited and eternal thanks in a very beautiful hair-rope. Neither helped her very greatly to pay for room and board. Another Andean offered her a pair of chickens, a third, paid her seventy-five cents on account and promised the rest soon. When she came to know his type better she realized that he had done exceptionally well by her. She went often to the Engels growing to love all three of them, each in a different way. Florey she found vain, spoiled, selfish, but all in so frank a fashion that in return for an admittedly half-jealous admiration she gave a genuine affection. And she was glad to see how Elmer made friends with them, always appearing at his best in their home. He and Florey were already as intimate as though they had grown up with a backyard fence separating their two homes. They criticized each other with terrible outspokenness, they made fun of each other, they very frequently hated and despised each other and a dearly unknown to either Florey Engel or Elmer Page were the best of friends. Of Roderick Norton San Juan saw little through these weeks. He came now and then, twice eight with Virginia and Elmer at Stravs, talked seriously with John Engel, teased Florey and went away upon the business which called him elsewhere. Upon one of these visits he told Virginia that Rocky Lane was on the mend and would be as good as new in a month. No other reference was made to her ride with him. But through his visits to San Juan, brief and few though they were, Roderick Norton was unable to ensure himself with his own eyes that Kid Rickard was still to be found here if required, that Anton, as usual, was behind the Casablanca Bar that Jim Galloway was biting his time with no outward show of growing restless or impatient. Tom Cutter, Norton's San Juan deputy, was a man to keep both eyes open and yet there were times when the sheriff was not content with another man's vision. Nor did the other towns of the county scattered widely across the desert, beyond the mountains and throughout the little valleys, see much more of him. If a man wished word with Rod Norton these days, his best hope of finding him lay in going out to El Rancho de la Florez. It was Norton's ranch, having been Billy Norton's before him. One of the choice spots of the county bordering Las Cruces Rancho, where a rocky lane was manager and foreman. Beyond the San Juan mountains it lay across the head of one of the most fertile of the renoivering valleys, the Big Water Creek, giving it its greatness, its value, and the basis for its name. There for days at a time the sheriff could in part lay aside the cares of his office, take the reins out of his hired foreman's hands, right among his cattle and horses, and dream such dreams as came to him. One of these days I'll get you, Jim Galloway. He had grown into the habit of musing. Then they can look for another sheriff. And I can do what I want to do. And his desire had grown very clearly defined to him. It was the old longing of a man who comes into a wilderness such as this, the longing to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before his coming. With his water rights a man might work modern magic. Far back in the hills he had found the natural site for his storage dams. Slightly lower in a nest of hills there would be some day a pygmy lake, whose seductive beauty to him who dwells on desert lands calls like the soft beauty of a woman. On a knoll where now was nothing there would come to be a comfortable, roomy, hospitable ranch house to displace forever the shacks which housed the men now further down the slopes, and everywhere. Because there was water a-plenty would there be roses and grapevines and orange trees, all this when he should get Jim Galloway. From almost any knoll upon the Rancho de la Flores he could see the crests of Mount Temple lifted in clear cut lines against the sky. If he rode with Goucho his foreman, among the yearlings he saw Mount Temple. If he rode the fifty miles to San Juan he saw the same peaks from the other side, and a hundred times he looked up at them with eyes which were at once impatient and stern. He began to grow angry with Galloway for so long post-poning the final issue. For though he did not go near the cliff-caves he knew that the rifles lay there awaiting Jim Galloway's readiness. A man named Bucky Walsh was prospecting for gold upon the slopes of Mount Temple, a silent leather-faced little fellow quick-eyed and resourceful. And above the discovery of color it was the supreme business of Bucky Walsh to know what happened upon the cliffs above him. If there were anything to report no man knew better than he how to get out of a horse all there was of speed in him. In the end Norton called upon the reserves of his patients, saying to himself that if Jim Galloway could bide his time in calmness he could do the same. The easier sense he was unshaken in his confidence that the time was coming when he and Galloway would stand face to face while guns talked. Never once did he let himself hope for another ending, giving what time he had free to ranch matters at Las Flores to share a found other things to occupy him. There was a gambler's fight one night at the camp at Las Palmos Mines, a man badly hurt and ill-starred bystander dead. The careless gunman of fugitive headed for the border. Norton went out after him, shifted saddle from jaded beast to fresh again and again, rode two hundred miles with only the short stops for hastily taken food and water, and got his man willy-nilly a mile below the border. What was more, he made it his personal business that the man was convicted in sentence to a long term. About San Juan there was no crime less tolerable than that of shooting wild. But all this brought him no closer to Jim Galloway. Galloway meeting him shortly afterward in San Juan laughed and thanked him for the job. It appeared that the man whom Norton had brought back to stand trial was not only no friend of the proprietor of the Casablanca, but an outspoken enemy. He'll be asking favors of me next, Norton, grin the big, thick bodied man. I'd pay you real money for getting a few like him out of my way. Get me, don't you? And he passed on, his eyes turned tauntingly. Yes, Norton got him. No man in the southwest harbored more bitter ill-will for the lawless than Jim Galloway, unless the lawless stood with him. A four-time many a hardy, temptuous spirit had defiled the crime dictator. Here, of late, there were few who hoped to slit throats or cut purses and not pay allegiance to the saloonkeeper of San Juan. Upon the heels of this affair, however, came another which was destined to bring Roderick Norton to a crisis in his life. Word reached him at Las Foras that a lone prospector in the Red Hills had been robbed of a baking powder tin of dust. And that the prospector recovering from the blows which had been rained on his head had identified one of his two assailants. That one was Vidal Nuno's circumstances hinted that the other might be Kid Rikert. Norton promptly instructed Tom Cutter to find out what he could of Rikert's movements upon the day of the robbery and himself set out to bring in Vidal Nuno's. Taking a grim joy in his task when he remembered how Nuno's had been the man who, with a glance, had cautioned Antone to hold his tongue after the shooting of Visby at the Casablanca. Here's a man, Jim Galloway, won't thank me for rounding up, he told himself, and we are going to see if his arm is long enough to keep Nuno's out of the penitentiary. He went to San Juan, learned that nothing had been seen of the Mexican there, set to machinery of the manhunt in full swing, pulled back through the settlement to the eastward and for two weeks got nothing but disappointment for his efforts. Nuno's had disappeared and none who cared to tell knew where, but Norton kept on doggedly confident that the man had not had the opportunity to get out of the country. He was equally confident that sooner or later he would get him. Then came the second meeting with Jim Galloway. The two men rode into each other's view on the lonely trail halfway between San Juan and Tecalote, which is to say, where the little barren hills break the monotony of the desert lands some eight or ten miles to the eastward of San Juan. It was late afternoon and Galloway riding back toward town had the sun in his eyes, though that he could not have known as soon as did Norton whom he was encountering, but Galloway was not the man to ride anywhere, that he was not ready for whatever man he might meet. Norton's eyes, as the two drew nearer, on the blistering trail, marked the way Galloway's right hand rested loosely on the candle of his saddle, very near Galloway's right hip. Norton merely eyeing him sharply was for passing on without a word or a nod. The other, however, jerked in his horse, clearly of a mind for Parley. Well, demanded Norton. I was just thinking, said Galloway dryly. What an exceptionally fitting spot we've picked. If I got you or you got me right now, nobody in the world need ever know who did the trick. We couldn't have found a much like her place if we'd sailed away to an island in the South Seas. I was thinking something of the same kind, returned Norton fully. For you any curiosity in the matter? If you think you can get your gun first, why? Then go to it. Galloway eased himself in the saddle. If I thought I could beat you to it, he answered tonelessly, I'd do it. As you know, if I even thought that I'd have an even break with you, he added his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as they took stock of the sheriff's right hand swinging free at his side, and never far from them but of the revolver fitting loosely in his holster. I'd take the chance. Ah, you're a shade too lively in the draw for me, and I happened to know it. For a little they sat staring into each other's eyes, the distance of ten steps between them, the right hand's idle, while their left hand's upon twitching reins curved the impatience of the two meddled horses. As was usual, their regard was one of equal malevolence. Of brimming, cold hatred. But slowly a new look came into Norton's eyes, a probing, penetrating look of calculation. Galloway was again opening his lips when the sheriff spoke saying with contemptuous lightness, Jim Galloway, you and I have bucked each other for a long time. I guess it's in the cards that one of us will get the other someday. Why not right now, and in the whole damn thing, when I'm up against a man as I am against you. I like to make it my business to know just how much sand has filtered into his makeup. You'd kill me if you had the chance, and weren't afraid to do it, wouldn't you? If I had the chance, return Galloway as coolly, though a spot of color showed under the thick tan of his cheek. And I'll get it some day. If you've got the sand, said Norton, you don't have to wait. What do you mean? Snap Galloway sharply. Norton's answer lay in a gesture, always keeping such a rain on his horse that he faced Galloway and kept him at his right. He lifted the hand which had been hanging close to his gun, slowly, inch by inch. His eyes hard and watchful upon Galloway's eyes. He raised his hand. Understanding leaped into Galloway's prominent eyes, it seemed that he had stopped breathing, surely the hairy fingers upon the candle of his saddle had separated a little. His hand, growing to resemble a tarantula preparing for its brief spring, steadily, slowly the sheriff's hand rose in the air, brought upward and outward in an arc as his arm was held stiff, as high as his shoulder now, now at last lifted high above his head, and all of the time his eyes rested bright and hard and watchful upon Jim Galloway's, filled at once with challenge and recklessness and certainty of himself. Galloway's right hand had stirred the slight fraction of an inch, his fingers were rigid and still stood apart. As he sat twisted about in his saddle, his hand had about seven inches to travel to find the gun in his hip pocket. Since when they first met, he had thrown his big body to one side, his left boot loose in the stirrup while his weight rested upon his right leg, his gun pocket was clear of the saddle, to be reached in a flash. You'll never get another chance like this, Galloway, said Norton crisply. I'd say it a guess, that my hand has about eight times as far to travel as yours. You wanted it even break. You've got more than that, but you'll never get more than one shot. Now it's up to you. Before we start anything, began Galloway, but Norton cut him short. I'm not full enough to hold my hand up like this until the blood runs out of my fingers. You've got your chance, take it or leave it. But don't ask for a half an hour's option on it. Swift changing lights were in Galloway's eyes, but its thoughts were not to be read. That he was tempted by his opportunity was clear. That he understood the full sense underlying the words, you'll never get more than one shot, was equally obvious. That shot, if it were not to be his last act in the world, must be the accurate result of one lightning gesture. His hand must find his gun, close about the grip, draw, and fire, with the one absolutely certain movement. For the look in Rod Norton's eyes was for any man to read. Jim Galloway was not a coward and Rod Norton knew it. He was essentially a gambler, whose business and life was to take chances. But he was of that type of gambler who plays not for the love of the game, but to win, who sets a cool brain to study each hand before he lays his bet, who gauges the strength of that hand not alone upon its intrinsic value, but upon a shrewd guess at the value of the cards out against it. At that moment he wanted more than he wanted anything else in the wide scope of his unleashed desires to kill Rod Norton. He balanced that fact with the other fact that less than anything in the world did he want to be killed himself. The issue was clear cut. While a watch might have ticked ten times, neither man moved. During that brief time Galloway's jaw muscles courted. His face went a little white, with the strain put upon him. The restive horses tossing their heads, making merry music with jingling bridal chains, might have galloped a moment ago from an old book of fairy tales each carrying a man bewitched, turned to stone. If you've got the sand, Norton daunted him his blood running hot with the fierce wish to have done with this side-stepping and procrastination. If you've got the sand, Jim Galloway, it's better than an even break that I could get you, said Galloway at last, and at that moment it's an even break or nearly so that as you slipped out of the saddle you'd get me too. You take the pot this time, Norton, I'm not betting. Shifting his hand he laid it loosely upon the Hornaby saddle, as he did so his chest inflated deeply to a long breath. Norton's uplifted hand came down swiftly, his thumb catching in his belt. There was a contemptuous glitter in his eyes. After this, he said bluntly, you'll always know and I'll always know that you are afraid. I make it a part of my business not to underestimate a man I go out to get. I think I have overestimated you. For a moment Galloway seemed not to have heard as he stared away through the great distances. When he brought his eyes back to Norton's they were speculative. Unlike you and me ought to understand each other and not make any mistakes, he said, speaking slowly, I have just begun to imagine lately that I have been doping you up wrong all the time. Now I've got two propositions to make to you. You can take either or neither. It will probably be neither. What are they? I've got a daze right ahead of me. Maybe you have? Maybe you haven't. That depends on what you say to my proposition. We're looking for Vidal Núñez, if you tell me. And I'm going to get him as much as anything for the sake of swatting the devil around to stump. Meaning me, Galloway shrugged. Well, here's my song and dance. This country isn't quite big enough. You drop your little job and clear out and leave me alone and I'll pay you ten thousand dollars now in another ten thousand six months from now. Offer number one, said Norton, manifesting neither surprised nor interest even. Twenty thousand dollars to pull me free. Well, Jim Galloway, you must have something on the line that pulls like a big fish. Let's have the other barrel. I have suggested that you clean out. The other suggestion is that if you won't get out of my way, you get busy on your job. Vidal Núñez will be at the Castle Blanca tonight. I've sent word for him to come in and that I'd look out for him. Come get him. Which will you take, Rod Norton? Twenty thousand iron men? Or your chances at the Castle Blanca? It was Norton's turn to grow thoughtful. Galloway was rolling a cigarette, the sheriff reached for his own tobacco and papers. Only when he had set a match to the brown cylinder and drawn the first of the smoke did he answer. You've said it all now, haven't you? He demanded. Yep. Said Galloway, it's up to you this time. What's the word? Norton laughed. When I decide what I am going to do, I always do it, he said lightly, and as a rule I don't do a lot of talking about it beforehand. I'll leave you to guess the answer, Galloway. Galloway shrugged and swung his horse back into the trail. So long, he said colorously. So long. Norton returned. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of the Bells of San Juan. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory. Chapter 11. The Fight at Casablanca. There was something after six o'clock when Jim Galloway rode into San Juan, leaving his sweat-soaked horse in his own stable at the rear of the Casablanca, passed through the patio and into a little room whose door he unlocked with a key from his pocket. For ten minutes he sat before a typewriting machine, one big forefinger, slowly picking out the letters of a brief note. The address also typed, for the name of a town below the border. Without signing his communication, he sealed it into its envelope and, relocking the door as he went out, walked thoughtfully down the street to the post office. As he passed Drawf's Hotel, he lifted his hat. On the veranda at the cooler shaded in, Virginia was entertaining Florence Engle. Gregory nodded brightly to Galloway, turning quickly to Virginia as the big man went on. "'Do you actually believe, Virginia, dear?' she whispered. "'That that man is as wicked as they say he is. Did you watch him going by? Did you see the way he took off his hat? Did you ever know a man to smile quite as he does?' "'I don't believe,' returned Virginia, that I ever had him smile at me, Florey. "'His eyes are not bad eyes, are they?' he ran on. "'Well, I know what Papa thinks and what Rod thinks about him, but I just don't believe it. How could a man be the sort they say he is and still be as pleasant and inagreable and downright good-looking as Mr. Galloway?' "'Why?' And she achieved a quick little shudder. If I had done all the terrible deeds they accuse him of, I'd go around looking as black as a cloud all the time, savage and glum and remembering every minute of how wicked I was.' Florey laughed, failing to picture Florey grown murderous. But Florey merely pursed her lips as her eyes followed Galloway down the street. "'I asked you,' Virginia Page, she said at last, sinking back into the wide arms of her chair with a sigh, if a man with murder and all kinds of sin on his soul could make love prettily.' Virginia started. "'What do you mean?' she began quickly. Florey laughed, but the other girl noted, wonderingly, a fresher tint of color in her cheeks. "'Goo-see!' Florey topped her head, drew her skirt down modestly over white stocking-dankles and laughed again. He never held my hand and all that, but with his eyes is there any law against a man saying nice things with his eyes. And how is a girl going to stop him?' Virginia might have replied that there was a matter which depended very largely upon the girl herself, but instead estimating that there was little serious love-making on Galloway's part to be apprehended, and taking Florey as lightly as Florey took the rest of the world. She was merely further amused, and already she had learned a welcome amusement of any sort in San Juan town. But again here was Galloway, stopping now in front of Stroves drawing another quick, bright smile from the banker's daughter, accepting its invitation and coming into the little yard and down the veranda. Only when he fairly towered over the two girls did he push back the hat which already he had touched to them, standing with his hands on his hips, his heavy features bespeaking a deep inward serenity and quiet good humor. It would have required a blinder man than Jim Galloway not to have marked the cool dislike and distrust in Virginia's eyes, but though he turned from them to the pink and white girl at her side, gave no sign of sensing that he was in any way unwelcome here. He had greeted Virginia casually, she observing him keenly, understood what Florey had meant by a man's making love with his eyes. His look, directed downward into the face, smiling up at him, was alive with what was obviously a very genuine admiration. While Florey allowed her flattered soul to drink deep and thirstily of the wine of adulation, Virginia only half understanding the writing in Galloway's eyes shivered a little and leaning forward suddenly put her hand on Florey's arms. The gesture, quick and spontaneous, meant nothing to Florey, nothing to Galloway, and a very great deal to Virginia Page. For it was essentially protective. It served to emphasize in her own mind a fear which until now had been a mere formless mist, a fear for a frivolous little friend. Galloway's whole being was so expressive of conscious power, Florey's of vacillating impulsiveness, that it required no considerable burden laid upon the imagination to picture the girl coming if he called, if he called with the look in his eyes now, with the tone he knew to put into his voice. Social lines are none too clearly drawn in towns like San Juan. Often enough they have long ago failed to exist. A John Engle, though six days of the seven he sat behind his desk in a bank, was only a man, his daughter only the daughter of a mere man. A Jim Galloway, though he owned the Casablanca and upon occasion stood behind his own bar, might be a man and look with level eyes upon all other men, their wives, and their daughters. Here, with conditions what they always had been, there could stand but one barrier between Galloway and Florey Engle, the barrier of character, and already the girl had cried, his eyes are not bad eyes, are they? A barrier is a silent command to pause. What is the spontaneous answer of a spoiled child to any command? Galloway spoke lightly of this and that, managing in a dozen ways to compliment Florey, who chattered with a gaiety which partook of excitement. In ten minutes he went his way drawing her amusing eyes after him, until he had reached his own door and turned it at the Casablanca. The two girls on Straug Veranda were silent. Florey's thoughts were flitting hither and yawn, bright-winged and consequential fluttering about Jim Galloway, exerting him for Roderick Norton, darting off to Elmer Page, coming home to Florey herself. As for Virginia, conscious of a sort of dread, she was oppressed with a stubbornly insistent thought that if Jim Galloway cared to amuse himself with Florey, he was strong and she was weak. If he called to her, she would follow. Virginia was not the only one whom Galloway had set pondering. Certain of his words spoken to the sheriff when the two faced each other on the Tecolote Trail, gave Norton food for thought. For the first time Jim Galloway had openly offered a bribe, one of no insignificant proportions. Prefacing his offer with remark, I have just begun to imagine lately that I have doped you up wrong all the time. If Galloway had gone on to add, time was when I didn't believe I could buy you, but I have changed my mind about this. This meaning could have been no planer. Now he held out a bribe in one hand, a threat in the other, and Norton, riding on to Tecolote, mused long over both of them. In Tecolote, a struggling village of many dogs and swarthy, grimy face children, he tarried until well after dark, making his meal of coffee, frijoles, and chili con carne. Thereafter smoking a contemplative pipe, abandoning the little lunchroom to the flies and silence he crossed the road to this saloon kept by Pete Nunez. The brother of the man whom it was Norton's present business to make answer for crime committed. Pete, a law-abiding citizen nowadays, principally for the reason that he had lost a leg in his younger-dayer days, swept up his crutch and swung across the room on the table where he was sitting, to the bar, saying a careless, yo-hey, by way of greeting. Hello, Pete. Norton returned quietly. Haven't seen Videl lately, have you? As Videl's brother there were a half-dozen men in the room playing cards or merely idling, in the yellow light of a kerosene lamp swung from the ceiling. Men of the saloon keepers breed to the last man of them. Their eyes, the slumberous, mystery-filled orbs of their kind, had lifted under their long lashes to regard the sheriff with seeming indifference. Pete shrugged. Me! I ain't seen Videl for a month. He answered briefly. I see Jim Galloway, though, Galloway say, and Pete ran his towel idly back and forth along the bar. Videl, come to La Casa Blanca tonight. I don't know. And again he shrugged. Norton allowed himself the luxury of a mystifying smile as Pete Nunez lifted, probing eyes to his face. Jim Galloway has been known to lie before now like other men, was all of the information he gave to a questioning look, and his face suddenly as expressionless as Pete's own. It wouldn't be a bad bet to look for Videl in Trace Robles, would it, eh, Pete? With that he went out, quite willing that Pete and his crowd should think what they pleased. Trace Robles lay twenty miles northwest of Telecote. And if Pete cared to send word to Galloway that the sheriff had ridden on that way, well, and good. Half an hour later, with the deeper dark of the night settling thick and sultry over the surface of the desert lands, he rode out of town following the Trace Robles trail. He knew that Pete had come to his door and was watching. He had the vague suspicion that it was quite possible that Videl was watching too, with eyes smoldering with hatred. That was only a guess. Not even for a man to hazard a bet upon. But the feeling that the fugitive was somewhere in Telecote, or in the Mesquite Thickets nearabouts, had been strong enough to send him traveling this way in the afternoon, would have been strong enough for him to have acted upon, searching through shack after shack, were it not that deep down in his heart he did not believe that Jim Galloway had lied. Here while he came in at one door, Videl might slip out another, safe among friends. But in the Casablanca Norton meant that matters would be different. For an hour he rode toward the northeast, then turning out of the trail and raining his horse into the utter blackness offered by the narrow mouth of an arroyo. He sat still for a long time listening, staring back toward Telecote. At last, confident that he had not been followed, he cut across the low Rhine Lomas, marking the western horizon and in a sweeping gallop, rode straight toward San Juan. He had had ample time for the shaping of his simple plans, before catching the first winking glimpse of the lights of Casablanca. He left his horse under the cotton woods, hung his spurs over the horn of the saddle, and went silently to the back of Strav's hotel, certain that no one had seen him. He half-circled the building, came to the window which he had counted upon finding open, slipped in, and passed down the hall to Strav's room. At his light-tap Strav called, come in, and turned toward him as the door opened. Norton closed it behind him. I am taking a chance that Fidel Núñez is a gala-waste right now. He told the hotelkeeper, I'm going to get him if he is. I want you to watch the back end of the Casablanca, and see that he doesn't slip out that way. A shotgun is what you want. Blow that head off, any man who doesn't stop when you tell him to. Is Tom Cutter in his room yet? While Strav, wasting neither time nor words, went to see. Norton unbuttoned his shirt, removed the .38 caliber revolver from the holster slung under his left arm, whirled a cylinder, and kept the gun in his left hand. In a moment Strav had returned, the deputy at his heels. Is this about Fidel being here? Cutter asked sharply. Norton explained briefly, and as briefly gave Tom Cutter his orders. When Strav mounted guard at the rear, Cutter was to look out for the front of the building. Going in alone, are you, Rod? Cutter shook his head. The doll is in there, and Galloway, and the kid, and Antone are all on the job. Chances are, there is going to be something happen. Better let me come in along with you. But Norton, his mouth grown set, and grim, and cherry of words, shook his head. Followed by Strav and Cutter, he was outside in the darkness five minutes after he had entered the hotel. Strav, a shotgun in his hands, took his place twenty steps from the back door of the Casablanca, his restless eyes sweeping back and forth continually. Taking stock of door and window, a lamp burning in a rear room, cast its light out through a window whose shade was less than half-drawn. Tom Cutter, accustomed to acting swiftly upon his superior suggestions, listened wordlessly to the few whispered instructions nodded, and did as he was told, of facing himself in the shadows at the corner of the building. Prepared when the time came to spring out into the street, once he could command the front and one side of the Casablanca. Norton, before leaving Cutter, had drawn the heavy gun from the holster swinging at his belt. Sometimes, since we've had any two-handed shooting to do, Tommy, he said as his lean fingers curved to the familiar grip of the Colt-45. But I guess we haven't forgotten now, now stick tight till you hear things wake up. He was gone, turning back to the rear of the house, passing close to Strav, going on to the northeast corner, slipping quietly about it, moving like a shadow along the eastern wall. Here were two windows, both looking into the long bar room, both with their shades drawn down tight. At the first window, Norton paused, listening. From within came a man's voice, the kids in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless and defiant, that and a clink of a bottleneck against the glass. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunoz. But after kid Rickard's jarring mouth, it was strangely still in the Casablanca. No noise of clicking chips, the speaking of poker game, no loud voice babble, no sound of a man walking across the bare floor. They're waiting for me, was Norton's quick thought. Galloway knew I'd come. He passed on, and came to the second window and paused again. The brief, almost breathless silence within, which had followed the kid's laugh, had already been dissipated by the customary Casablanca sounds, a guitar was strumming, chips clicked, a bottle was set heavily upon the bar, a chair scraped. Norton frowned a moment ago as something happened in there to still men's tongues. What was it? It was Galloway who gave him his answer. So you did come, did you, Vidal? There was a jeer in the heavy voice. Scared to come, eh? And scared words to stay away. Galloway's short laugh was as unpleasant as ever Rickard's had been. See! I'm here. The voice of Vidal Nunoz was answering quick, eager, sibilant, with its unmistakable nervous excitement. Pete, tell me what you say, and I come. He lifted his voice abruptly, breaking into a soft southern oath. Like a cat, to jump through the little window and roll on the floor and by God just in time. There was one man at the back with the gun and one man in front and another man. Let him come, cried Galloway lovably. A heavy hand, spining a tabletop, saw a glass jumped and felt breaking to the floor. Only, and he sent his voice booming out warningly, any man who chips in, unmasked, and starts trouble in my house, can take what's coming to him. So then Vidal had just arrived. It had been his sudden entrance which had invoked the silence in the bar room. Norton merely shrugged. There had been a chance of taking Vidal alone, intercepting him. But that chance had not been one to wait for. Now it was passed, negligible, not to be regretted. At last he knew where Vidal Nunoz was. And it was his business to make an arrest and not to wait upon further chance. The man who was not ready to go into a crowd to get his lawbreaker is not the man to stand for sheriff in the southwest country. Coming Galloway, Norton's ringing shot came back in answer. Suddenly the steady pulse of his blood had been stirred. The hot hope stood high in his heart again that he and Jim Galloway were going to look into each other's eyes with guns talking, and an end of a long, devious trail in sight. For the moment he half forgot Vidal Nunoz whom he could fancy cowering in a corner. Then when he knew that every man in the Casablanca had turned sharply at his voice, he ran from the window to the street, turned the corner of the building, and in at the wide front doorway, a short hall, a closed door confronting him. Then that had been flung open and on its threshold a gun in each hand, his hat far back on his head, his eyes on fire. He stood looking in on a half-dozen man and three glinting steel barrels which, describing quick arcs, were whipped from the window toward him. A gun in Galloway's hand, one in the hand of Vidal Nunoz, the third already spitting fire as kid Rickard's narrow eyes shone above it. The other men had fallen back precipitantly to the right and left. Norton noted that Elmer Page was among them, pace or two from Rickard's side. The kid, being young, had something of youth impatience perhaps the only reminiscence of youth left in a callous soul. So it was that he had shot a second too soon. Norton, as both hands rose in front of him, answered kid Rickard with the smaller caliber gun, while the colt in his right hand was concerned impartially with Galloway and Vidal Nunoz. Standing close together, the kid cursed, his voice rose in a shriek of anger rather than pain, and he spun about and fell backward, tripping over an overturned chair. Shoot, Galloway, cried Norton, shoot, damn you, shoot. Now as for the second time that day, the two men confronted each other, naked, hot, hatred glaring out of their eyes. Each man knew that he stood balancing a crucial second, midway between death and triumph. Jin Galloway, who never until now had come out into the open in defiance of the law, must swallow his words under the eyes of his own gang, or once and for all, forsake the semi-security behind his ambush. Again, issues were clear cut. He answered the sheriff with a curse and a stream of lead, as he fired he threw himself to the side, the old trick, his gun a little higher than his hip, and fired again, and shot for shot, Norton answered him. Though but half the length of a room lay between them as yet, neither man was hurt. For no longer were they in the rich light of their swinging coal lamp, the room was gathered in pitch darkness, their gun spat long tongues of vivid flame. For just as Kid Rickard was falling while Jim Galloway's finger was crooked on the trigger, while Antone was whipping up his gun behind the bar, there had come a shot from the card room shattering a lamp, neither Norton nor Galloway, Rickard nor Vidal Nunez, nor Antone, nor any of the other men in the room saw who had fired the shot. As the light went out, Norton leaped away from the door, having little wish to stand silhouetted against such a rectangle of pale light from the outer night, and leaping, he poured in his fourth and fifth and sixth shots in the quarter where he hoped to find Galloway. But always he remembered, where he had seen Elmer Page standing, and always he remembered, Antone behind the bar and Vidal Nunez drawn back into the corner. His forty-five emptied, he jammed it back into its holster and stood rigid, staring into the blackness about him, every sense on the QV. Galloway had given overshooting he might be dead or merely waiting. Vidal had held his fire, seeming frightened, uncertain, of stun. Antone would be leaning forward, peering with fronting eyes, trying to locate him. It swept into Norton's mind suddenly that thus in utter and unexpected darkness he had the upper hand. He could shoot the law riding upon each flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal, or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell. It would be a man who richly deserved what his fate was bringing him. They, on the other hand, being many against one, must be careful which way they shot. He had come for Vidal Nunez, the man he wanted was younger, but a few feet from him, duty and desire pointed across the room to an obscure corner. He moved a cautious foot. The floor complained under his shifting weight, and from Galloway's quarter came a spit of fire. Twin with it came a shot from behind the bar that was Antone talking, and now, at last, came the other shot from Vidal himself. Rod Norton's was that type of man which finds caution less to his liking than headlong action. Furthermore, in the present crisis caution had seemed to act me of foolhardiness. There are times when true wisdom lies in taking one's chances boldly, flying half way to meet it. Now his three bullets sang by him. He gathered himself then before the sharp reports had died in his ears, and sprang forward, hurling himself across the room, striking with his lifted gun as he went, missing, striking again, and experiencing that grinding, crunching sensation transmitted along the metal barrel as struck a man fair upon the head. The man went down heavily, and Norton stood over him, preying that it was Vidal Nunez. Then it was that Julius Straub, having departed his post at the rear, smashed through a window with the muzzle of his shotgun, sending the shade flipping up, springing back from the square of faint light as he cried out sharply. Are you all right, Norton? All right, cried Norton. I'm against the north wall. Rake the other side of the bar with your shotgun. If they don't step out, you and Cutter together, I've got Ricardo Nunez out of it. Drop your gun, Galloway. Lively, while you've got a chance. Antones, Straub's got a shotgun. Antone cursed, and with a snarl of his voice came the clatter of a revolver slamming down on the bar. Galloway cursed and fired, emptying his second gun, crazed with hatred and blind anger. Again, shot for shot, Norton answered him. And again, it grew very silent in the Casablanca. Out through the window, one by one, with your hands up and your guns down, shot as straub, or all start in. Which is it, boys? There was a scramble to obey, the several men who had taken no part leading the way. As they went out, their forms were, for a moment, clearly outlined, then swallowed up in the outer darkness. At Straub's command, they lined up against the wall, watched over by the muzzle of his shotgun. Antone, crying out that he was coming, followed Elmer Page, sick and dizzy, was at Antone's heels. Tom Cutter had gathered up some dry grass, and with that, and a chance found, bit of wood, started a blaze near the second window. In its wavering, uncertain light, the faces of the men stood out whitely. Galloway is not here yet, he snapped, and lifting his voice, Come on, Galloway! A crowd had gathered in the street, asking questions that went unanswered. Other hands added fuel to Cutter's fire. The increasing light at last penetrated the blackness, filling the bar room. Come out, Galloway! Said Straub coldly. Got you covered. Once things were bad enough as they were, and he had no desire to make them worse, and saw no opportunity to better them. Jim Galloway, his hand nursing a bleeding shoulder, stumbled awkwardly through the opening. Is that all of them, Roddy? Called Cutter? Norton didn't answer. The deputy called again. Then, while the crowd surged about the door and window, Cutter came in a revolver in his right hand, a torch of a burning faggot in his left, held high. Fidel Nunez was dead, not from a blow upon the head. But from a chance bullet through the heart after he had fallen. He had rickered his sullen eyes wide with their pain. They half under a poker-table, lying across the body of Nunez, as those still guarding his prisoner, was a quiet form of Rod Norton. His face, bloodlessly white, saved for the smear of blood, which had run from the wound hidden by the close cropped black hair. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. OF THE BELLS OF SAN WAN. THE BELLS OF SAN WAN BY JACKSON GRAGERY. CHAPTER XII. WAVERING IN THE BALANCE. Ignacio Chavez, waiting to ask no questions, had raced away through the darkness to beat out a wild alarm upon his bells. Later he would learn how many were dead and would set the captain mourning. But already had San Juan poured out her handful of citizens upon the street. Keep those men where they are, called Tom Cutter. Every damned one of them. They'll be an answer wanted for tonight's work. Get a doctor, somebody, Patton, or Miss Page. Candles were brought, presently a lamp was found and set on the bar. The curious began to desert Straub and his prisoners outside, and crowd about Cutter and the two forms lying still in the corner. Kid Rickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little up and down the street. Half propped up against the wall. Straub, as the fire of faggots and grass began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the way back into the bar room, and hurted five other men after him. The shotgun, promising a mutilated body to any man in them, was sought to run for it. Núñez, as dead, reported a deputy sheriff, getting up from his knees. Norton is alive, and there's no other way to kill him. The deputy sheriff, getting up from his knees, Norton is alive, and that's about all, a shot along the side of the head. He turned slowly toward Galloway, who, with steady hands and a face set in hard and scudable lines, was pouring himself a generous glass of whiskey. Looks like he'd got him, Jim. He said brashly his eyes glittering, and it looks like I'd got you. Or I want you by God. Galloway drank his whiskey and made no reply. He was thinking, thinking fast. His eyes were never still now, but rove from Rod Norton's white face to the faces of Tom Cutter's drove, and the other men gathering in the room. Born upon one of the Casablanca's doors, Norton was carried to Strav's Hotel, the nearest place, where an attempt could be made to care for him. Word came in that Virginia Page had been summoned upon one of her rear calls, and was in Los Estralos. Norton, however, would be on hand in a moment. It was suggested that Kid Rickard also be carried to the hotel, but he himself asked to be left where he was until Patton came. Cutter raised no objection. It was clear the kid was too badly hurt to think of making an escape where such his desire. Galloway and Anton alone were put under arrest. The others merely advised to be on hand if they were wanted later. Galloway coolly demanded the charge against him. The main officer, as good as any right now, Snap Carter, as quiet claimed the town again, Caleb Patton, became the most important figure in San Juan. At such moments he seemed to swell visibly. He drove the curious from the room while he examined the unconscious sheriff, and when he had finished, merely shook his head, looked grave, and refused to commit himself. He ordered Norton undressed and put to bed, went down the street to see Kid Rickard, probed the wound in the upper chest, ordered him to bed, and returned to Norton at the hotel. Well, asked John Engel, who had arrived, talked with Straub and now looked anxiously to Patton. Patton shrugged. Every caliber bullet ripped along the side of his head, he said thoughtfully. I am going to make a second examination now. Doubtless, just the shock stunned him. That or striking his head as he pitched forward. There's another slight wound of scalpelin, showing where his head hit as he fell. A moment later Tom Cutter came in hastily, stood for a little staring with frowning troubled eyes, at the quiet form on the bed, and would wait, tugging at his lip, his frown deepening. He had his hands full to-night, had Tom Cutter, and no one but himself knew how he wanted Rod Norton to tell him just what to do to show him the way to make no mistake. Leaving the room, he had gone no further than the front door when he swung about and returned. May I have a word with you, Mr. Engle? He asked. Engle nodded and followed him silently. Out in the street in the full light of Straub's porch lamp, Cutter stopped, glancing about him to make sure that it was not overheard. You know all about the shooting a brocking lane up in the mountains, he said hurriedly. Rod told me he did. Well, I just gathered in Maraga. Maraga, muttered Engle. He singed Galloway then, and told him about our knowing the rifles were caked in the old caves. Found him at the Casablanca, said Cutter, with a worried look in his eyes. Somebody shot out the light when the mix-up started. I have a notion it was Maraga. He was in one of the little card rooms putting on his shoes. I got his gun. He'd fired just one shot. The muzzle of it was bloody. If he has told Galloway. But I don't believe he has. Straub says that just as Norton started things, he saw a man run in from the cotton-woods and duck into the house. It was Straub's job to see that nobody got out, and he let him go by. If it was a Maraga, who was it? And when I grabbed him just now, the first thing he said was, I want to talk to Galloway. He didn't let him, demanded Engle quickly. No, a couple of the boys have walked him off down the road. Got Galloway and Anton in the jail. Now, what I want is some advice. What am I going to do with this job until Rob Norton comes to and takes a hand? He ever does. He muttered heavily. It's clear that you've got to keep Maraga away from Galloway. If they haven't already had a chance to talk, it's pure godsend, and it's up to you that they don't get a chance. Yes, a minute cut her slowly. But I'm the first man to admit I'm all mugged up. What did Maraga have his shoes off for? If he shot out the light, why did he do it? And how did he get blood on his gun? Engle shook his head. All questions for the district attorney later, Tom, he answered. But if you want any advice from me, here it is. Get Maraga out of the way on the jump. He is supposed to be in jail in the next county. He must have broken out. Send a man to Los Palmos to telephone the sheriff, Roberts. Send Maraga along with him. And whatever you do, keep Jim Galloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against him tonight. That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do, eh? Sure of it, said Engle, parply. Find out if you can whether Maraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the house to let my wife and Flory know what has happened. Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and leaving his wife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel. I've done all that any one could do for him, said Patton, as though defending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. He's in pretty bad shape, Engle. I guess I can pull him through, but at that it's going to be a close squeak. Luckily, I was right on hand, though. And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, of traumatism, super-inducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made no impression on the banker. He mentioned two wounds, Engle reminded him, the one made by the bullet and another, by his head striking as he fell. Yes, that would have completed the work of the first shot in knocking him unconscious, but it is a negligible affair now. He wouldn't know anything about it in the morning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since the other injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowed along the outer surface of the skull. I think that I can promise you he'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, but I've made cold compresses, too. Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before on his back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white. A bandage about his head. A lump came into the banker's throat, and he turned away. For he remembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton had never regained consciousness, and that the blow then, as now, had been struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was upon him that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Cato Powton admitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finally brightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of the flatlands, lying beyond Tecolote, the wounded man at Stroves Hotel lay as he had done all night, giving no sign to tell whether he was life's or death's. End of chapter 12