“Mebbe that was why they didn’t get back no sooner,” Ezra opined. “Had to be keerful gettin’ him back to the hideout.”

  “Yeh,” Pat agreed.

  Back at the cabin they found Sam fuming because there was no coffee for the pot which he had brought in from outside where Ezra had left it.

  “What the hell you mean, pourin’ out them coffee grounds?” he growled. “They ain’t another speck o’ coffee left.”

  “If it hadn’ of been for me and that coffee pot,” Ezra countered sourly, “you wouldn’ have no stove to cook bacon on.”

  “You’ll get your coffee all right,” Pat said briskly. “You’re goin’ to the Sutton place and tell Sally not to worry about me. Martha’ll give you coffee.”

  “Me?” Sam drawled indignantly. “Me tell Miss Sally? I shore ain’t sticking my face out fer Sally to scratch m’eyes out.”

  “Ezra and me are gettin’ on the trail,” Pat went on mildly. “You better start thinkin’ up a good story to tell Sally so she won’t worry.”

  Ezra’s one eye gleamed delightedly. “You know Pat cain’t find no trail ’thout I go ’long with ’im, Sam, and you know Miss Sally’d hogtie ’im if he went and tol’ her hisse’f.” He turned on his heel and started for the door. “C’mon, Pat. We got to git on that trail ’fore it gits cold.”

  They went out, leaving Sam dourly cutting thick slabs of bacon.

  SIX

  Morosely Sam turned the strips of bacon in the big black frypan as his slow-thinking mind pondered Pat’s orders. The thought of tackling a gang of hooded murderers held no terrors for him, but to face Sally Stevens with the news that Pat was again on the renegades’ trail struck fear through to his marrow. And to acquaint Sally with the fact that he and Ezra had followed Pat to Dusty Canyon was nothing short of disaster.

  His swarthy-black face was grim as he heard Pat and Ezra ride away, and by the time he had eaten two biscuits with four half-cooked slabs of bacon pressed between them, he was choking in his haste to swallow the last of them.

  An idea had penetrated his slow wits. Wiping his greasy hands hard against his corduroy breeches, he made a thorough search of the big room for writing material. Finding none, he opened the door to the lean-to. Though the outer walls and part of the plank floor were charred, the chest was intact. Lifting the heavy lid which Ezra had closed hastily the night before, he began lifting out the quilts and sheepskins and carrying them into the other room. In the bottom of the chest he found a pencil stub among the litter. In one corner there was a carefully wrapped, flat package. Seizing upon the plain brown paper, he started to tear off a piece large enough to write a note to Sally, but curiosity prompted him to explore the contents of the package.

  Inside the paper was a Bible bound in soft leather. The words “Holy Bible” and “Sarah M. Holland” stood out in dull gold letters. Running a rough forefinger over the words, he discovered that they were indented. He opened the book to the flyleaf and there were the two words, “Holy Bible,” in the center.

  Sam grinned ruefully over a fresh idea. If he wrote Sally a note on that page, maybe she would believe that Pat was all right and was not in danger. Without a qualm of conscience, he ripped the page from the book, replaced the Bible, and went out to the rough-hewn dining table, and laboriously wrote:

  Dear Miss Sally

  You dont need to worry none about Pat. He ain’t in no trouble atall. He ast me to tell you he wud be at Suttons place come night

  Frum a friend.

  Carefully folding the note, he went out and mounted his sway-backed sorrel and began the precipitous descent along the narrow path leading to the stage road.

  He hoped to encounter a traveler going toward Tola so that he could send the note and return to the cabin to follow Pat and Ezra before they had gone too far, but if he didn’t have this luck, he determined to ride on to one of the miners’ cabins, find someone to deliver it, and then circle back on the shelf road to meet them.

  The harried creases in his face spread out into a broad grin as the sure-footed sorrel picked his way along the path. Pat and Ezra would be somewhat surprised to see him without marks from Sally’s fingernails on his face.

  The scheme was pleasant in his mind, and he was undaunted upon reaching the stage road and seeing no sign of human life. He spurred the sorrel to a gallop and continued some five miles toward the Sutton cabin before riding up to a flock of sheep that filled the trail for fully half a mile and herded by four men. Behind the men a young boy rode a pony.

  Riding up alongside the boy, Sam inquired, “How fur you goin’ up Tola way?”

  “Pa’s herdin’ the flock to Mr. Simpson’s corral for feedin’,” the boy answered.

  “How fur’s that?” Sam asked keenly.

  “’Bout two mile this side of Tola.”

  Sam fumbled in his pocket and took out a coin. “Know where the Sutton cabin is?”

  “Shore,” the boy answered.

  “Kin I git you to hand a note to Miss Sally Stevens at old man Sutton’s place for two bits?”

  “Shore.” The boy’s eyes sparkled at the coin in Sam’s hand.

  “An’ tell Miss Sally a good-lookin’ young man dressed up like a dude ast you to hand it to ’er? ’Thout tellin’ ’er nothing ’bout how I look?”

  The boy flashed a keen look at Sam, hesitated, then laughed spontaneously. “Shore, Mister, iffen you wanta play a funny trick on ’er.”

  “Yeh,” Sam said, laughing with the boy. “It’s jest a trick I’m playin’ on Miss Sally. But you be shore and don’t let on the truth, no matter how many questions she asts.”

  “I won’t,” he promised, seizing the coin from Sam’s open palm. He had lagged behind the flock a little while talking to Sam, and dug his heels against the pony’s flanks.

  Sam watched him trot away, then turned his sorrel up a steep embankment and was lost to view in the upsweep of pine and spruce.

  Sally Stevens was filled with her own grief and terror when she fell sobbing into Martha Sutton’s arms after leaving the stagecoach, but after telling her story, to which Sam had listened outside the cabin window, she was confronted by such fright and futility from Martha and Mr. Sutton that she quickly regained her calm and found herself in the rôle of the solacer instead of the solaced.

  Mr. Sutton was a tall slight man with a narrow, weather-beaten face the color of old leather. His light gray eyes were weak and watery, his hands gnarled and knotted with rheumatism. His shoulders were stooped and thin, and Sally’s heart wrenched with pain at the thought of this honest, hard-working man, who looked much older than his years, at the mercy of a gang of thieves and murderers. It was the first time Sally had seen Martha Sutton’s father, and it seemed incredible that he had sired the beautiful young girl who was his only daughter, his only child.

  Martha was tall and slender, with bright dark eyes, and a mass of golden curls tumbling about her suntanned face. Except for her mature curves, Sally thought she looked just as she did when Sally taught her in the grade school in Denver where they had become fast friends.

  “It’s all my fault that Pat was captured,” Martha cried when Sally finished her story. “I wouldn’t blame you for hating me for begging him to come, but we didn’t know what to do. After they killed Sheriff Ross we felt so helpless.”

  “Martha’s right,” Mr. Sutton interposed before Sally could remonstrate with the girl. “It wasn’t none of Pat’s fight. He shouldn’t of come … nor you either, Miz Stevens.”

  “But Pat didn’t come to go after the outlaws,” Sally declared. “We came to help you and Martha get away … and take all the gold we could all carry together.”

  “’Taint no use tryin’ to get away,” Mr. Sutton answered miserably. “They’d be watchin’ and no tellin’ what they might do to us if they caught us runnin’ away with the gold. It’s best to stay here and hope they leave us alone.”

  “But they’d be bound to come after you sooner or later. They know that all the miners around here have gold dust stored up. The only sensible thing to do is let Pat and me help you get out.”

  “Pat’s not … here to help,” Martha stammered, holding her soft chin set to keep her mouth from trembling.

  Sally’s heart was as heavy as lead and fear for his safety set her pulse throbbing in her throat. She said bravely, “I know Pat will come. He’ll get away from those hooded men somehow.” She lifted her head proudly and it helped to keep the tears back.

  “Oh, I wish we had gone from here long ago!” Martha burst out in an agonized young voice. “I tried to get Papa to go to Denver. I hate this place, anyway.”

  “Hush,” Sally commanded as sternly as she had rebuked the children in her school room. “You have a perfect right to live here, or anywhere else in the West you want to. Nobody has the right to run people away from their homes.” Her deep blue eyes flashed fire.

  “But what can we do?” Martha asked pitifully.

  “Now Marthy,” her father chided gently, “you listen to Miz Stevens. She maybe kin teach you some things outside of what’s in books.”

  Sally frowned and bit her lip while her eyes stared thoughtfully into space for a moment. She was thinking back to her own struggle when first she came to the wide open spaces of the West … of Pat’s valiant struggle to rid her of a menace as terrible as that which now confronted the Suttons.

  “It’s experiences like this, Martha,” she said finally, “that make a girl grow up. I was about your age when a gang of thieves headed by a supposedly respectable man tried to take everything I had away from me. You can’t live here in the West without growing up at an early age. I see it all more clearly now. An hour ago I thought that all I wanted from life was Pat and Dock and the ranch, but there’s … a lot more than that.”

  Martha bent forward interestedly, rested her elbow on her knee and cupped her chin in her palm. With her dark eyes wide upon Sally, she said, “Then … you believe Pat will get away … and come to help us?”

  “I … of course I do,” Sally answered with a certainty that she was far from feeling.

  “Then why don’t we start planning?” Martha cried. “Do you have any idea how we can … get away … take the gold with us?”

  “Well … no, nothing definite,” Sally acknowledged. “We’ll have to wait until Pat …”

  “We just couldn’t go and leave the gold,” Martha broke in. “Why, Papa has simply slaved all his life panning it out, and he wouldn’t know how to do any other kind of work. What would we live on, even if we did get away?”

  “Now, Marthy, it ain’t as bad as all that,” her father said hastily. “I could get a job … work.”

  Sally admired his spirit, but his tone was filled with futility. She said, “We’ll think of something. By tomorrow, maybe.”

  Martha sprang up from her chair. “My goodness! You must be starved, Sally, and here I sit talking about our troubles when you have so many of your own … and all because of us … and I hadn’t even thought of fixing dinner for you.”

  Sally felt that she would choke if she attempted to swallow food, but she knew she would need all her strength to cope with the situation … her own and the Suttons’. “Don’t go to a lot of bother, Martha,” she said. “Just give me something left over from supper.”

  Mr. Sutton arose from his low rocking chair before the fire. “I’ll leave you and Martha to talk over old times and make the plans, Miz Stevens. “I’ll turn in and get some sleep.” He walked stiffly across the room and opened a door leading into a small bedroom and Sally joined Martha in the big warm kitchen.

  It was very late when the two women retired to Martha’s bedroom. Sally’s body ached with weariness, and anxiety for Pat kept her tossing on the big comfortable bed until nearly dawn. She never knew whether the plan for the Suttons’ escape was a dream or whether it came in those tortuous hours before sleep came, but when she was wakened the next morning by someone pounding on the front door of the cabin, the plan was clear in her mind.

  At the sound of the knocking, Sally sat up in bed, then flung the covers back and got up, slipped hastily into her heavy robe and, with her heart pounding, was hurrying to the bedroom door when Mr. Sutton rapped.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Mr. Sutton came in with Sam’s note and handed it to Sally. She read it wonderingly two or three times, but she would not allow herself to believe the words scrawled on the flyleaf of the Bible.

  “Who brought it?” she asked.

  “Young feller ridin’ by. Said a young man dressed up like a dude asked him to bring it. He seemed right tickled ’bout somethin’.”

  “It’s … a trick,” Sally said sharply, but her eyes went again to the scrawl, and though her better judgment warned her not to believe it, her heart warmed with surging hope.

  Mr. Sutton stood patiently waiting for her to tell him the contents of the note. She handed it to him and he took his glasses from his pocket, hooked them on his nose, and read it. Handing it back to her, he said, “We’ll jest have to put faith in it, Miz Stevens. It don’t seem like nobody’d play a trick with writin’ on a page out of the Bible.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Sally answered slowly. “I know Pat will come as soon as he can.”

  Martha was wide awake and demanded to know what was going on. Sally explained, and when Mr. Sutton went away and closed the door behind him, she sat down beside Martha on the bed and said:

  “I have thought of a plan that might work to get some of the gold dust out.”

  “Oh! I knew you would. With you and Pat to help us I know we’ll be able to do something.”

  “Have you any heavy material in the house that we could make a couple of dresses out of?” Sally asked.

  “Why yes,” Martha replied, her dark eyes wide with wonder. “I bought some heavy dark blue silk and some dark red the last time I was in Denver, but,” she ended petulantly, “what’s the use of making them? There’s nowhere to wear them up here, and I’ve been afraid to try to go anywhere for months.”

  “That’s fine,” Sally went on. “You and I are going to do some sewing. Now, here’s my plan. We’ll make the material up … one for you and one for me. We’ll put ruffles on the skirts all the way down … double ruffles … and every one of them will have gold dust in them. Now, here’s the way we’ll do it. When the ruffles are sewed on we’ll sift the gold dust in … enough to look like piping or folds, and just above the dust we’ll run a seam to hold it in place tightly. When we put them on over hoops they’ll stand out and no one will dream of them being worth their weight in gold.” She paused to laugh, then added, “And I’ll bet they’ll be plenty heavy. And we might even tie some small sacks around our waists and let them hang down. Anyway, we’ll carry all we can stagger under. Nobody will think anything of a couple of women riding to town, all dressed up, in the stagecoach.”

  Martha’s eyes grew wider and wider with admiration, and when Sally finished she threw her arms around her former teacher’s neck and crushed her with a strong-armed hug.

  “That’s simply marvelous!” she cried. “Just watch me walk as straight as a queen, no matter how heavy the dresses are. I’ll bet I could carry fifty pounds!”

  “My,” Sally laughed, “that’s a lot of gold, but we’ll see how it works out. Get up and let’s get busy. It’s going to be a job cutting those ruffles, and they have to be sewed with mighty fine stitches.”

  SEVEN

  Pat was not certain that he remembered the structure of the canyon walls correctly, but as he and Ezra rode along the lower shelf trail he looked about him and knew that he had been right in his conjectures last night. Up above, and some distance below the canyon’s rim at its highest peak, was another ledge which partially overhung the lower trail, and following it as far as the eye could see, it appeared inaccessible. Pat had an idea, however, that somewhere farther on it sloped down as the main rim sloped, to a point where bold, daring thieves might make use of it and thus gain a vantage point over anyone pursuing them.

  Ezra was more concerned with the trail over which they rode. So far as they had gone, an amateur could not have missed the path of the night riders, for here was only thick underbrush with an occasional patch of stunted spruce and aspens. When Ezra looked up, it was to watch the gray clouds which covered the sky.

  “Snow clouds,” he muttered to himself.

  “Let it snow,” Pat returned jovially. “We couldn’t miss their trail. It’s plain enough that several horses’ve been along here.”

  “It’s gettin’ rockier. Look ahead there. Ain’t nothin’ but rock shelf with gradu’l slopes where they might’ve gone down any place. We got a right fur piece of it, and if it snows we ain’t got a chanct to trail ’em.”

  “H-m-m,” Pat murmured. “I feel somethin’ cold and wet hittin’ me in the face.”

  “Snowin’,” Ezra answered dourly.

  Suddenly Pat laughed aloud. “Wonder how Sam’s gettin’ along with Sally?” Then he added seriously, “If he don’t get word to her I’ll smash his black whiskers in.”

  “Might’s well have ’em smashed in as scratched off,” Ezra responded with a broad grin.

  A sudden swirling wind whipped in their faces, bringing the sting of small, sleety snowflakes. At the same instant Pat strained forward in the saddle, his gray eyes narrowed and disbelieving, for far ahead he glimpsed a hooded rider on a black horse. The figure had his arms outstretched and waving, as if he signaled to someone above or below.

  Without a word Pat stuck spurs to his horse’s flanks and the animal raced forward. In a flash Pat’s gun was in his hand and a shot re-echoed through the still gray morning.

  Prodding the dun mare with spurs, Ezra dashed ahead to keep pace with Pat. “What the hell you shootin’ at?” he demanded.

  “A black devil,” Pat answered grimly, urging his horse faster. They rounded a curve which immediately straightened out and brought them back into view of the spot where Pat had seen the black-robed rider. But he had disappeared from sight.