XXIII. MOON’S SINCERITY

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      Covered by the forest, three men watched the hut which was the fortress of Dawn and Ronicky. Eight remained to receive the leader and his burden, Bud Kent’s body. Behind the shelter of the shacks which cut them away from the sight and the guns of Ronicky and Dawn, the outlaws stood in a loosely formed circle and stared silently down into the face of Kent. There was no expression of sorrow from those fierce fellows. They had seen too many companions drop before. But there was a universal turning of eyes to the direction of hidden Ronicky and his companion.

      Jerry Dawn, her face hidden in her hands, leaned almost fainting against a tree near by, with Silas Treat, her guard, close to her.

      “Si,” ordered the commander, “take Miss Dawn away. Give her a walk through the trees.”

      She submitted to Treat’s touch, and they disappeared among the forest’s shadows.

      “Now, boys,” said Jack Moon, “you see the luck that’s followed us?”

      A dead and ominous silence greeted his speech.

      “Are you set on giving the house a rush?” he asked.

      “Why not fire?” suggested the crafty Baldy McNair.

      “Why not a torch and a signal fire to call everybody in the mountains this way?” the leader countered, with a sneer.

      It was something the others had not thought of. But now Baldy returned on a different tack.

      “We can get close to them in the shack that stands alongside of theirs. There won’t have to be no forest fire. We can throw burning sticks onto the roof of their house and rout them out that way, and then the rest of us can stand by and plug them when they try to run. Ain’t that simple enough?”

      “Mighty simple!” again Jack Moon sneered. “Too simple. The logs of that shack are soaked as wet as they can be from the rains of the last week. And there’s been too much shade over the house for the rain to get all dried out again. Most you could do would be to start a slow fire smoldering, and we can’t wait for a slow fire to eat into that cabin.”

      The argument seemed unanswerable.

      “But,” persisted McNair, “we got to do something. Otherwise, we’ll be a laughing stock. What’s mostly kept us safe all of this time? The fact that nobody knew our faces or what we were like. It was just known that Jack Moon and his band were worse than the devil, and that we couldn’t be follered and found. But if gents get to know that we’ve let two men sift through our fingers, and if those two gents go out and give a description of what we look like and all that, how long d’you think we’ll last? Boys, we’ll be signing our own death warrant if we let them two go free! They got to die. And they got to die, even if it costs the chief the good liking of that girl yonder!”

      “Boys,” said Moon, “let’s do the wise thing. I ain’t going to stay here and waste words talking and arguing with Baldy McNair about his crazy idea that I want the girl. I’m willing to admit that we’d ought to make a final try at the cabin, and we’ll attempt to plug the gents that’s in it.

      “We’ll work out a way of getting at it somehow or other, and then we’ll try to finish up Doone and Hugh. But I warn you, it ain’t going to be any easy job. If we fail, I’m for starting back over the hills as fast as we can travel, carrying the girl with us, as a hostage, and then, after we get a little distance off, I’m for splitting up and each man going for his home. Does that sound like good sense to the rest of you?”

      They all had to admit that it was the best plan. To wait to burn wet logs would be foolish. It might take them two days. To attempt to lay a long siege to the hut which sheltered the two enemies, was even more insane. But by a single rush, using weight of sheer numbers, they might do much. Then, as the leader had suggested, the possession of the girl might prove a point of the utmost importance, if they failed to capture the hut; for, while she was in their hands during their flight, Doone and Hugh, even though they followed, certainly would not dare to call up the powers of the law to run down the outlaw band.

      “Baldy,” said the leader, “you and the boys put your heads together and lay a plan. I’m going out to get Si Treat. And when I come back I’ll go over the scheme with you. We’ve got to make the plan and try it out before dawn. By daylight we’ve got to be on our way north!”

      Yet the preparations of Jack Moon, considering the fact that he had just arranged for an attack, were most singular. First he slipped around to the rearmost hut of the three which faced the clearing on this side, opposite to the one in which Doone and Hugh were.

      Behind this shack he found in the woods the two tall grays which the girl and her father had ridden out onto the trail. Tall and long of limb they were, and in a pinch it would go hard indeed if the common cow ponies of the band could keep pace with the big fellows.

      These two horses he saddled, putting the girl’s saddle upon one and his own upon the other. But his preparations did not stop there. From the rest of the horses he selected the two which combined the greatest speed and strength. Then, having saddled them, he packed upon them his own three shares of the gold, shares which he had weighed out so cunningly that in reality there was the weight of four, and close to a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the precious metal was included in the double load.

      Still he was not content. Slipping into the next shack, unobserved all this time by the grave council which was deliberating on ways and means of attacking the house of Ronicky, he brought forth another load of the gold, the share of what member of the band he could not tell. This burden he divided