The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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to understand that she might walk up and down in front of the houses for a few minutes after breakfast. Naturally she made the most of the little liberty allowed her.
The old squaw Sit-in-the-Sun squatted in front of the last hut, her back against the log wall. The man called Buck sat yawning on a rock a few yards away. What struck Melissy as strange was that the squaw was figuring on the back of an old envelope with the stub of a lead pencil.
The young woman walked leisurely past the cabin for perhaps a dozen yards.
"That'll be about far enough. You don't want to tire yourself, Miss Lee," Buck Lane called, with a grin.
Melissy stopped, stood looking at the mountains for a few minutes, and turned back. Sit-in-the-Sun looked quickly at her, and at the same moment she tore the paper in two and her fingers opened to release one piece of the envelope upon which she had been writing. A puff of wind carried it almost directly in front of the girl. Lane was still yawning sleepily, his gaze directed toward the spot where he presently expected Rosario to step out and call him to breakfast. Melissy dropped her handkerchief, stooped to pick it up, and gathered at the same time in a crumpled heap into her hand the fragment of an envelope. Without another glance at the squaw, the young woman kept on her way, sauntered to the porch, and lingered there as if in doubt.
"I'm tired," she announced to Rosario, and turned to her rooms.
"_Si, seorita,_" answered her attendant quietly.
Once inside, Melissy lay down on her bed, with her back to the window, and smoothed out the torn envelope. On one side were some disjointed memoranda which she did not understand.
K. C. & T. 93 D. & R. B. 87 Float $10,000,000 Cortes for extension.
That was all, but certainly a strange puzzle for a Navajo squaw to set her.
She turned the paper over, to find the other side close-packed with writing.
Miss Lee:
In the last cabin but one is a prisoner, your friend Sheriff Flatray. He is to be shot in an hour. I have offered any sum for his life and been refused. For God's sake save him somehow.
Simon West.
Jack Flatray here, and about to be murdered! The thing was incredible. And yet--and yet---- Was it so impossible, after all? Some one had broken into the Cache and released the prisoners. Who more likely than Jack to have done this? And later they had captured him and condemned him for what he had done.
Melissy reconstructed the scene in a flash. The Indian squaw was West. He had been rigged up in that paraphernalia to deceive any chance mountaineer who might drop into the valley by accident.
No doubt, when he first saw Melissy, the railroad magnate had been passing his time in making notes about his plans for the system he controlled. But when he had caught sight of her, he had written the note, under the very eyes of the guard, had torn the envelope as if it were of no importance, and tossed the pieces away. He had taken the thousandth chance that his note might fall into the hands of the person to whom it was directed.
All this she understood without giving it conscious thought. For her whole mind was filled with the horror of what she had learned. Jack Flatray, the man she loved, was to be killed. He was to be shot down in an hour.
With the thought, she was at her door--only to find that it had been quietly locked while she lay on the bed. No doubt they had meant to keep her a close prisoner until the thing they were about to do was finished. She beat upon it, called to Rosario to let her out, wrung her hands in her desperation. Then she remembered the window. It was a cheap and flimsy case, and had been jammed so that her strength was not sufficient to raise it.
Her eye searched the room for a weapon, and found an Indian tom-tom club. With this she smashed the panes and beat down the wooden cross bars of the sash. Agile as a forest fawn, she slipped through the opening she had made and ran toward the far cabin.
A group of men surrounded the door; and, as she drew near, it opened to show three central figures. MacQueen was one, Rosario Chaves a second; but the most conspicuous was a bareheaded young man, with his hands tied behind him. He was going to his death, but a glance was enough to show that he went unconquered and unconquerable. His step did not drag. There was a faint, grave smile on his lips; and in his eye was the dynamic spark that proclaimed him still master of his fate. The woolen shirt had been unbuttoned and pulled back to make way for the rope that lay loosely about his neck, so that she could not miss the well-muscled slope of his fine shoulders, or the gallant set of the small head upon the brown throat.
The man who first caught sight of Melissy spoke in a low voice to his chief. MacQueen turned his head sharply to see her, took a dozen steps toward her, then upbraided the Mexican woman, who had run out after Melissy.
"I told you to lock her door--to make sure of it."
"_Si, seor_--I did."
"Then how----" He stopped, and looked to Miss Lee for an explanation.
"I broke the window."
The outlaw noticed then that her hand was bleeding. "Broke the window! Why?"
"I had to get out! I had to stop you!"
He attempted no denial of what he was about to do. "How did you know? Did Rosario tell you?" he asked curtly.
"No--no! I found out--just by chance."
"What chance?" He was plainly disconcerted that she had come to interfere, and as plainly eager to punish the person who had disclosed to her this thing, which he would have liked to do quietly, without her knowledge.
"Never mind that. Nobody is to blame. Say I overheard a sentence. Thank God I did, and I am in time."
There was no avoiding it now. He had to fight it out with her. "In time for what?" he wanted to know, his eyes narrowing to vicious pin points.
"To save him."
"No--no! He must die," cried the Mexican woman.
Melissy was amazed at her vehemence, at the passion of hate that trembled in the voice of the old woman.
MacQueen nodded. "It is out of my hands, you see. He has been condemned."
"But why?"
"Tell her, Rosario."
The woman poured her story forth fluently in the native tongue. O'Connor had killed her son--did not deny that he had done it. And just because Tony had tried to escape. This man had freed the ranger. Very well. He should take O'Connor's place. Let him die the death. A life for a life. Was that not fair?
Flatray turned his head and caught sight of Melissy. A startled cry died on his lips.
"Jack!" She held out both hands to him as she ran toward him.
The sheriff took her in his arms to console her. For the girl's face was working in a stress of emotion.
"Oh, I'm in time--I'm in time. Thank God I'm in time."
Jack waited a moment to steady his voice. "How came you here, Melissy?"
"He brought me--Black MacQueen. I hated him for it, but now I'm glad--so glad--because I can save you."
Jack winced. He looked over her shoulder at MacQueen, taking it all in with an air of pleasant politeness. And one look was enough to tell him that there was no hope for him. The outlaw had the complacent manner of a cat which has just got at the cream. That Melissy loved him would be an additional reason for wiping him off the map. And in that instant a fierce joy leaped up in Flatray and surged through him, an emotion stronger than the fear of death. She loved him. MacQueen could not take that away from him.
"It's all a mistake," Melissy went on eagerly. "Of course they can't blame you for what Lieutenant O'Connor did. It is absurd--ridiculous."
"Certainly." MacQueen tugged at his little black mustache and kept his black eyes on her constantly. "That's not what we're blaming him for. The indictment against your friend is that he interfered when it wasn't his business."