Outside, the air was much warmer than yesterday and the sun was nearly an hour high in a clear blue sky. The snow had melted into a brown slush in the corral. Bogging through it, Sally found the horses crunching on hay left over from her generous feeding of last night. She led them to the buggy and deftly harnessed and hitched them.

  Returning to the kitchen she found Martha furiously stirring scrambled eggs. The stove was red hot in spots and coffee was boiling.

  A few minutes later they were experiencing a certain feminine pride and happiness in the new dresses, in spite of their fears and sorrows. Martha put on her hooped underskirt and Sally helped her get into the heavy dress. Turning the younger girl around, Sally said,

  “I don’t believe anybody would ever notice any difference. The hoops hold the skirt out just right. The red is very becoming to you, too.”

  “Oh … thank you,” Martha replied. “Now let me help you. You can certainly feel the weight of the gold, even if you can’t see it.”

  When they were ready to go to the buggy Sally waited patiently and anxiously while Martha walked aimlessly around the rooms with her eyes misted over and her mouth held tight. Sally’s throat was constricted with pity, but she said calmly:

  “You’d better leave a note … for your father. Tell him we’ll be in Denver at the Windsor Hotel. We’ll have to get these dresses to the mint as soon as we can.”

  Martha’s face brightened. “Then … you think Papa will come back … here?”

  “I hope so,” Sally answered, keeping her voice free of the turbulent emotion she felt.

  Martha went to the table and sat down. With a stubby pencil she wrote:

  Dear Papa: Sally and I have taken the buggy and started for Pueblo. We will be in Denver at the Windsor Hotel and you must come as soon as possible if you escape, and I pray God you will. With love and hope, Martha.

  Looking over her shoulder, Sally nodded approval. Martha found an ore specimen on the littered table and laid it on the note. After another brief, sorrowful look around, she followed Sally out the door, which they left unbolted, and on to the buggy.

  The snow had turned to slush on the slight incline leading from the cabin to the stage road. Turning from the spruce-lined path onto the stage road, they found the snow rapidly melting under the bright sun. The air was cool and revivifying as they urged the horses into a trot, and with their bulging skirts carefully covered with a big sheepskin rug they felt a sense of security and satisfaction. There was nothing in the silent fresh morning to warn them of trouble ahead.

  They were two miles on the way to Pueblo when they heard the rapid clatter of a horse coming behind them. Sally had difficulty with her hoops when she tried to turn her body enough to peer through the dingy isinglass peephole behind her.

  She saw a man riding hard on a black horse with white forelegs and a long white mark between his eyes. She kept her position while her right hand fumbled in her handbag for her pistol.

  Suddenly she said, “Stop the horses, Martha. That looks like Mr. Torrence. I think he’s trying to catch up with us.”

  “Torrence?” Martha asked, amazed. She reined the horses to a dead stop and in a moment Jack Torrence was pulling his prancing blazed-face horse to a stop beside the buggy.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Stevens … good morning, Miss Sutton,” he said, and let his eyes take in Martha’s flushed cheeks beneath her little red bonnet tied under her chin.

  Martha lowered her dark eyes under his admiring gaze, and Mr. Torrence said:

  “I’ve been riding hard to catch up with you. You’ve got to turn back. It’s dangerous for you to go on.”

  Sally bristled. Her mouth was tight when she asked, “What sort of danger?”

  Torrence did not answer at once, averting his eyes. Then he said, gruffly, “You’ve got to get back to the Sutton place as fast as you can.”

  “Is Papa? …” Martha began.

  “Your father is alive,” he cut in sharply. “You’re going back right now.” He moved toward the horses’ heads and started to grab the reins. He was turning them about when Sally snapped:

  “Let go of those reins, Mr. Torrence, or I’ll shoot. I know what you’re up to. You think you’ll get Martha back to the cabin and make her tell where the gold is. I’m certain, now, you’re one of the hooded gang.”

  Torrence’s eyes blazed in his handsome face as he stared at the little gun which Sally held steadily leveled at his heart. He dropped the reins and rode back to her side of the buggy.

  “Maybe I am one of the gang,” he said harshly, “but we don’t deal in kidnaping. I tell you there’s a plot to capture you and Miss Sutton before you get to Pueblo.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Sally maintained stoutly, still covering him with the pistol. “Now you ride on and let us get on our way.”

  She was leaning out of the buggy, and in a flash Torrence’s hand snatched the gun from her gloved hand. At the same instant his horse reared and pranced a few yards to the rear of the vehicle.

  Sally saw him whirl the animal around and gallop back toward them. She was surprised when he stopped beside her again and with a flourish handed the weapon back to her.

  “I’m sorry I was so rash, Mrs. Stevens. If you insist upon going on, you’ll probably need this. But I’m warning you for the last time … you’d better turn back.”

  Sally frowned thoughtfully, studying Torrence’s angry face. Then she said, “Start the horses, Martha.”

  Torrence galloped ahead of them for a few yards, turned, and the white forelegs of the black horse raced past them, going back toward Tola.

  “Well, that’s that,” Sally sighed deeply.

  Martha had not spoken a word except her first brief response to Torrence’s greeting, but had sat wide-eyed and flushed and disbelieving of all she heard. Now she said, “I don’t see how a man with such a fine face could be a … criminal,” in a wondering voice.

  “You’ve got a lot to learn, then,” Sally said curtly. “Some of the biggest crooks in the West are handsome men. That doesn’t mean a thing.”

  Martha winced. “But … maybe they have brought Papa back home. Maybe Mr. Torrence does know something.”

  “We can’t risk going back now,” Sally said flatly. “We’ve got to get to Denver as quickly as possible.”

  The horses were racing around the sloppy curves under Martha’s continued flips of the whip, slewing the light buggy sidewise and spattering it with mud.

  Both girls regained their calm after another half-hour’s ride without meeting anyone or hearing any sound except that of their own rig. As they approached a hairpin curve on the trail Martha slowed the team to pass over the dangerous turn. Here the road rose over solid rock, turned sharply, and dipped down precipitously to lead through a rocky, barren waste. Martha knew the stage trail well, knew that the rock was slippery and treacherous when wet.

  She pulled on the wooden brake, and the team was moving slowly, hunched back, at the turn near the bottom.

  As they rounded the sharp-angle turn, a black horse galloped from behind a huge boulder, ridden by a black-robed and hooded figure.

  Sally cried, “Speed up … as fast as you can,” swiftly opening her bag and taking out her pistol again.

  The black horse dashed past them and a harsh voice ordered: “Stop, damn yuh! or I’ll blast yore hawses.”

  Sally leveled the pistol and took aim just as the team was jerked around, cutting the buggy wheels sharply and throwing Sally against the iron rods supporting the buggy top. Her elbow struck a rod and a sharp pain shot through her arm. The pistol fell from her limp fingers, caught for an instant on her hooped skirt, then slid to the floor.

  Martha sat pale and helpless as the robed figure pulled at the bridle reins, leading the team from the road and across a barren stretch of rock along the floor of the canyon, heading toward the great boulders to the north.

  Sally recovered quickly from the blow on her elbow and leaned down to retrieve the pistol, but with the jostling of the rig it had slid from sight. The stiff hoops billowing her skirts out and the folds of the robe hid it securely from her frantically searching fingers.

  The buggy was careening perilously over the jagged rocks, but the hooded figure did not once turn his head to look back. He raced the three horses forward, finally cutting sharply around a projecting boulder.

  A hundred yards beyond was an upsweep of spruce and gray aspens toward which they rushed. At last they drew up before a path where the robed man brought the horses to a stop.

  “Git out o’ thuh buggy,” he commanded brutally, “er I’ll drag yuh out.”

  Stiff with fright and anger, the girls sat staring at the figure as it came menacingly toward them with long strides. Before he reached them, Sally made another futile effort to find the pistol, but the man had grabbed for Martha and was lifting her roughly from the seat. He set her on the ground and ordered, “Foller that path up tuh thuh shack whilst I git t’other un out.”

  Sally had her gloves off and her fingers clawed for fighting when the tall, burly figure reached for her.

  “Naw yuh don’t,” he snarled, his voice grating deep in his throat. He caught her hands and held them in a vise-like grip, finally forcing both of them into one of his own. He then caught her around the waist and swung her from the seat.

  Martha had not moved. She stood staring at Sally as if she had grown to the rock.

  “You gals shore er heavy ’uns,” the man complained as he stood Sally on her feet, grabbed Martha with his free hand and forced them along the path with Sally fighting every step of the way.

  In the dense woods they came upon a deserted log cabin high up the canyon walls on the north, and beside the cabin was a great yawning hole … an old abandoned mine.

  The door of the cabin sagged open, and the man dragged them inside, gave them a rough shove and turned to lock the door. He then took a pistol from his pocket and nourished it before them.

  “Effen yuh make a move tuh git away, I’ll shoot. They’s coupla chears fer yuh tuh set on effen yuh want.”

  “Coward … murderer!” Sally said coldly.

  Martha turned her head and stumbled backward to sink into one of the chairs. Sally stood staring at the man defiantly. Then, with a sudden quick step, she went forward, her deft fingers catching the bottom of the black mask.

  As she started to give a quick jerk upward the man’s iron hand clamped her fingers. When he let go, her hand fell limply to her side and she sank into a chair exhausted.

  The hooded man laughed harshly, stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He grated, “I’m gonna go hide thuh buggy an’ thuh hawses. ’Tain’t no use fer yuh tuh try tuh git away. Thuh do’ll be locked with a key. Then I’m a-comin’ back an’ git me some rest. Ho-hum!” he yawned again.

  Sally sprang to her feet as he closed the door, but sank in the chair when she heard the key click in the lock. She could hear him leading the horses away, heard the rumble of the buggy wheels over rocks.

  Her eyes scanned the walls of the little room, but there Was no window. The dimness was suffocating, with only a few tiny points of light coming through a few cracks in the chinking between the logs. Sally shivered with cold. She got up and walked around the room. In one corner was a cot bed covered with blankets and sheepskins, and in another a small cookstove. On the floor beside it there was a large box filled with dry wood. On a narrow shelf above it were several cans of food and a paper-wrapped bundle which she supposed contained bacon.

  She found matches on the shelf. Lifting the stove lid she put in a few sticks of wood, struck a match to it. The dry kindling caught up quickly and by the time the burly figure returned, the little room was growing warm.

  He chortled in his throat and said, “They ain’t nawthin’ lak havin’ a ’oman aroun’ tuh make things warm an’ cozy. Reckon I oughta light up a lamp so’s I kin admire m’women fo’ks.”

  “Please … don’t,” Sally gasped. “It’s all right … like this. It’s still early in the morning.”

  “That don’ make no diffunce. Me, I don’t git tuh admire sech purty women much.” He struck a match and put flame to a small glass lamp with a chimney, and as he bent over the light, Sally could see that his eyes were black behind the tiny slit.

  He strutted over to where Martha sat cold and listless with her hands folded in her lap and her fingers showing white around the knuckles from their tight interlacing.

  “Me, I lak ’em young, like this un. Got spunk, too, jest lak her ol’ daddy. He shore didn’t come ercrost with no info’mation ’bout whar at his gold wuz hid.”

  Martha came to life enough to hug her coat around her and shiver. The bright red of her dress billowed all around the chair beneath her coat.

  “Hits a-gittin’ warm in heah, Miss,” the man said, then gruffly commanded, “Take off that coat.”

  “I won’t,” Martha flared, then shrinking away from him she said pleadingly, “I’m … cold,” and shivered again.

  The man’s tone changed when he said, “Waal, open hit up jest a mite. I shorely am fond o’ red.”

  Martha did not move, but Sally did. She was out of her chair and bending protectively over the younger girl. “If you touch her, I’ll tear that mask from your face and scratch your eyes out.”

  He chortled again. “Naow, don’ git me wrong, Miss. I ain’t gonna git mushy when they’s two women ’roun’. I like tuh do muh co’tin’ sorta private lak.”

  Sally stood up straight and rigid, folding her hands across her diaphragm. In moving, she flirted her skirts around, and the keen eyes of the masked bandit evidently observed the sluggish movement of the silk which should have swished and billowed.

  He moved ominously toward Sally, bent down quickly and caught one of the precious ruffles between his fingers, lifted it slightly.

  Sally grabbed at his hood and pulled, but he was too quick for her. His big hands shot upward and held the hood on tight.

  Loosening her fingers from their grasp on the hood with difficulty, the man backed away. “Shore sumpin’ powerful funny ’bout you gals. Fust yuh weigh a ton when I lif’ you outta thuh buggy, an’ now …” A gleam shone behind his eye-slits. “Whut’s them frocks made outten, nohow?”

  “Silk,” Sally responded, but her face went white and her eyes watched him warily.

  Leaning against the wall he kept his eyes upon the skirts of their dresses. In a moment he said, “So … that’s thuh way yuh’re takin’ thuh ol’ man’s gold out, huh? Sewed up in dresses. H-m-m. Didn’ never know women wuz purty an’ smaht all ter oncet.”

  While Martha and Sally looked at him in wonder and amazement, the man bent double with laughter … whole-hearted, substantial laughter which seemed very strange after the ironic chortle. He flapped his hands together beneath the black robe and looked not unlike a huge buzzard flapping his wings for flight.

  “An’ thuh boss thinks he’s smaht,” the man went on when he caught his breath. “Jest wait ’til he heahs ’bout this. An’ thuh boss … he don’ ’low no messin’ ’roun’ wit women cause he sez they’s too dum’ an allus gettin’ a feller in trouble.” He burst into a fresh spasm of laughter which lasted a full minute.

  He stopped laughing as suddenly as he began. Leaning for a while against the wall as though too weak to move, he finally strode across the room and stood before Martha and said,

  “I done fell plumb in love wit’ yuh, Miss Sutton. Yo’re thuh damndest purties’ gal I evuh seed. I shore hope t’marry yuh one o’ these days. Yuh got spunk ’n ever’thing.”

  Despite Sally’s wrath and fright, she had, when the man was laughing, felt flattered. With both his laughter and his words he had complimented her, and for a moment he seemed almost human.

  But now they both could only stare in blank amazement. The man sounded earnest making love to Martha, and Sally was outraged. Martha sat with her lips slightly parted and her face was crimson. Her dark eyes were lowered to her hands in her lap.

  For a while there was utter silence in the little shack. Sally was thinking fast. It seemed to her that the gruff outlaw had softened before Martha’s golden beauty.

  Perhaps she could make use of it … goad him into allowing them to escape and go on their way!

  It was a slim chance, but she decided to take it. She could explain to Martha later.

  She said, “Why don’t you let us go? You seem to be … not all bad. Maybe you don’t like that gang of thieves and murderers very much. Why don’t you clear your conscience by letting us escape? Then … maybe you’ll have a chance to … win Martha’s … love … afterwards, when everything is … settled.”

  Sally felt like a fool. She dared not look at Martha. Utter futility settled over her when the black-hooded man snapped:

  “Not a chanct, Miz Stevuns. I don’ aim tuh let you nor Miss Martha git outta m’sight. I’m a-holdin’ yuh right heah ’til thuh time comes t’take yuh away.”

  FIFTEEN

  Swaying weakly in the saddle but with his gaze fixed always grimly ahead, Pat Stevens pushed the commandeered horse up the narrow winding trail at a reckless gallop. He knew Sam and Ezra would follow as swiftly as possible with Mr. Sutton, but the fact that he knew nothing whatever about what had occurred since he had been pulled from the stage yesterday afternoon gave a driving impetus to his fear that Sally was in terrible danger, that her need for him was urgent.

  What had happened at the Sutton cabin when the gang had seized the old miner and carried him away to their hideout? If the girls were present at the time, Pat knew Sally would put up a fight, even against overwhelming odds. But there hadn’t been any evidence of the girls’ presence at the hideout. And old man Sutton’s faltering words after being rescued indicated that he had some knowledge of the girls’ present danger.

  At least the black-hooded thugs hadn’t found the hoard of gold dust, Pat comforted himself grimly. They wouldn’t have continued to torture Sutton that way if he had told them his secret.