“You and me?”

  “So I take it.”

  “Hays can’t beat me to a gun,” rejoined Jim, with a cold ring in his voice.

  “Nor me, either. Thet’s a safe bet.”

  “Does Hays know that?”

  “Wal, he orter know it, leastways about me,” replied Smoky, in perplexity. “But he’s grown so cocky lately thet mebbe he’s damn fool enough not to believe it.”

  “Shall I call him out?”

  “Hell, no!” flashed Smoky, with a passionate gesture. “After all, Brad was to blame. . . . But, Jim, I jest can’t advise you no more. We both gotta paddle our own canoes.”

  “Well, I’m not so squeamish,” declared Jim, with meaning. “I like you, Smoky. I reckon you’re the one real, square man in this bunch. And if you want my advice you’re welcome to it.”

  “Jim, I’ve sorta cottoned to you,” admitted Smoky. “But honest to Gawd I’m afeared to ask you anythin’.”

  “What’re you afraid of, Smoky?”

  “I don’t know. Mebbe it’s a queer hunch Hank has busted us over this gurl.”

  They reached the camp. Lincoln lay face down over the table, his right arm hanging low, and his gun lying near his hand.

  “Fellers, if I’m gonna cook your supper, you’ll hold obsesquees fer our departed pard,” observed Jack.

  “Wonder who’ll go next?” queried Mac, gloomily, twisting his lean hands.

  “Lend a hand, some of you,” ordered Slocum, peremptorily.

  They carried Lincoln, face down, across the oval to the lower side of the cottonwood grove, where he had his bed and pack.

  “I’ll search him,” said Slocum. “Mac, you go through his pack. Jim, fetch the ax an’ anythin’ we can dig with.”

  In half an hour Lincoln had been consigned to the earth, and his possessions divided among the men who buried him.

  “Grave number two?” speculated Smoky. “Fellers, it runs in my mind thet Robbers’ Roost in these next twenty years will be sprinkled all over with graves.”

  “How so, when nobody has any idee where it is?”

  “Heeseman will find it, an’ Morley, an’ after them many more,” concluded Slocum, prophetically.

  “Let’s rustle out of the damned hole,” suggested Bridges.

  It was dark by the time Happy Jack called them to supper. Jim carried over an armload of brush to make a bright fire. By its flare Hays was seen approaching, and when he drew near he said, “Jim, did they tell you straight how I come to draw on Brad?”

  “Reckon they did,” replied Jim, coldly.

  “Anythin’ to say?”

  “No. I don’t see how you could have acted any differently.”

  “Wal, you’ve coppered it with the ace. The second Brad jumped me I seen in his eyes he meant to egg me on to draw. So I did it quick. . . . Jack, what you got fer supper?”

  By tacit consent and without a single word the men avoided Happy Jack’s table that night and ate around the camp fire. Hays stood up, Smoky sat on a stone, Jim knelt on one knee, and the others adopted characteristic poses reminiscent of the trail.

  “Cool after the rain,” remarked Hays, after he had finished. And he took up a blazing fagot of wood. “Reckon I’ll make a little fire fer my lady prisoner.”

  He stalked away, waving the fagot to keep it ablaze.

  “I call thet nervy,” declared Smoky. “What you think, Jim?”

  “Just a bluff. Watch him.”

  “Hank’s gone dotty,” snorted Happy Jack, for once affronted. “Thet gurl hates his very guts.”

  “Men, what this Herrick girl thinks or feels is nothing to Hays,” chimed in Jim, ringingly.

  “I seen her last night when he called me to fetch her supper,” said Jack. “Fust time I’d had a peek at her face lately. Seemed a ghost of thet other gurl.”

  “Yes, and you fellows saw only a ghost of the money Hays got from the Herricks,” retorted Jim, divining the moment for revelation had come.

  An angry roar arose. Smoky threw up his hands and left the camp fire. Then Jim, in brief, cold terms, exposed the machinations of their chief. After the first outburst they accepted the disclosure in astounded and ominous silence. Jim left the poison to brew and paced off into the darkness.

  The fire Hays had built in front of the shelter cast a bright light, showing the girl walking to and fro. Jim kept in the shadow of the cliff and stole within a couple of hundred feet, then sat down on the grassy bench. If the girl spoke, when Hays brought her food, it was too low to hear. Jim quivered when she faced in his direction and at the end of her short walk gazed across at the camp fire. It was too long a gaze to be casual.

  Jim had a feeling that he could not much longer stay his hand. Right then if he had seen Hays as much as touch the girl he would have shot him and risked having it out with the men. But the chief sat there, a fading figure in the dusk. Finally Helen went into her tent. Jim grasped at that break in the tension of the hour and stole away to his bed. Tomorrow! He could wait through tomorrow. There would be a row and anything might happen. Hays was in no mood to tolerate inquiry or criticism. Most of them all, he had answered to a vitriolic devastation of character through crime. He wanted that money, that which he had kept, and all of theirs. He wanted it for more than gambling. Robbers’ Roost was a hiding-place only; Utah had grown too small for him. So Jim Wall’s divining mind whirled on, until slumber claimed him.

  Sometime during the night Jim was awakened. He opened his eyes. Above him arched an opal starry sky. The moon had gone down, yet its radiance still dominated that of the stars. Pearly tints crowned the high bluffs. The hour was late and wolves were mourning in the distance. Perhaps they had roused him. Still, there was something mysterious and melancholy in the moment, as if he had been under the influence of a dream.

  As he closed his eyes again a soft hand touched his cheek and a whisper brought him wide awake, transfixed and thrilling.

  “Jim! . . . Wake up. It is I.”

  Helen knelt beside him. Jim sat up with a violent start.

  “You! . . . What is it? — Has that devil—”

  “Hush! Not so loud. Nothing has happened. . . . But I couldn’t sleep — and I must talk to you — or go out of my mind.”

  In the starlight her face had the same pearl-white tint as the clouds, and her eyes were like great black gulfs peering down upon him. After a moment he could see more clearly.

  “All — right. Talk — but it’s risky,” he whispered huskily. His hand rested upon the blanket. She put hers on it, as if in her earnestness to assure him of her presence and her feeling.

  She bent lower, so that her face was closer, and she could whisper very softly.

  “First I want to tell you how cruelly it has come home to me — my ignorance, my failure to believe and trust you, even after you — so — so rudely insulted me that day upon the mountain trail. If I had only had faith in you then! It’s too late. But I want you to know I have the faith now.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad, though I didn’t kiss you — handle you that day — just to frighten you. I fell!”

  “I don’t believe that altogether. No matter. If I had listened to you I would not now be in this terrible predicament. The fear — the suspense are wearing me out.”

  “But you are well — all right still? . . . He has not harmed you? Helen!”

  “No he has not harmed me, and I am not ill. I’m losing flesh because I can’t eat. But that’s nothing. . . . Lately I don’t sleep because I’m horribly afraid he will come — and — smother me — or choke me — so I can’t cry out. I’ve slept some in the daytime. . . . Jim the thing is I — can’t stand it much longer.” Jim smothered a violent curse. “He has not tried — lately,” she went on. “I swore I would jump over the cliff. I think I frightened him. But I can see — I can feel — Oh! Jim, for God’s sake, do something to end — this horror—”

  She leaned or fell forward in the weakness of the moment, her head against him. He stroked it gently, his reaction as far from that passionate and mocking embrace at Star Ranch as could have been possible.

  “Helen, don’t give up,” he replied. “You have been brave. And it has gone — better than we could hope. . . . Only a little while longer!”

  “We might steal away — now.”

  “Yes. I’ve thought of that. But only to get lost and starve — or die of thirst in these brakes.”

  “That almost — would be better — for me.”

  “If you can’t stick it out we’ll plan and go — say tomorrow night. We must have food, horses. . . . It’s only honest, though, to tell you the chances are a hundred to one against us. . . . We’ve got an even break if we wait.”

  “How can you — think that?”

  “This gang is about ready to go up in smoke. There’ll be a terrible fight. Hays surely will be killed. And just as surely, more than he. That will leave a proposition I can handle without risk to you.”

  “Even then — we still have to find a way out of this awful place.”

  “Yes, but I’d have time, and I could pack water and food. . . . Helen, trust me, it’s the best plan.”

  “If you take me back to my brother, I’ll give you the ransom.”

  “Don’t insult me,” he replied, bitterly.

  At that she drew up suddenly, and threw her hair back from her face. “Forgive me. . . . You see I have lost my mind. That never occurred to me before. But I’ll reward you in some way.”

  “To have saved you will be all the reward I ask — and more than I deserve. . . . You’ve forgotten that I love you.”

  “Yes — I had,” she whispered. Her great eyes studied him in the starlight, as if the fact had a vastly different significance here than it had had at Star Ranch.

  “The proof of it is that I’m one of this robber gang — yet ready to betray them — kill their chief and any or all of them. Except Smoky. I’ve worked on him so that he’s our friend. He is a real man, as you’ll see when the break comes. . . . If you were an American, you’d be human enough to grasp the situation and help me through with it.”

  “I am human and I — I’ve as much courage as any American girl,” she flashed, stung by his caustic words. “You — you talk of love as freely as you Westerners talk of horses — guns — death. . . . But surely you don’t mean that it’s because you love me you’ll save me?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “I cannot believe you. . . . I never accepted you as a desperado.”

  “Miss Herrick, all that doesn’t matter,” he rejoined, almost coldly. “We are wasting time — risking — much—”

  “I don’t care. That is why I had to come to you. I knelt here for moments before awakening you. It helped me somehow — and it is easing my nerves to talk.”

  “Well, talk then. But make it low. . . . You must have crept very softly to my side. I sleep with one eye open.”

  “Indeed you don’t. Both yours were tight shut. And your lips were stern. A strange thought came to me. I wondered if you had not had a good mother, and sister perhaps.”

  “I had,” whispered Jim, feelingly.

  “That accounts.”

  “It did not keep me from—”

  Suddenly she stiffened, no doubt at the slight sound that had checked Jim’s speech. She put a hand over his lips and stared at him with wide, vague eyes.

  Over her shoulder, Jim’s eye was arrested by a glint of starlight upon a bright object on the ground. Above and behind it a shape, darker than the dark background, gradually took the outline of a man on hands and knees. Cold terror assailed Jim Wall, despite his iron nerve. That was Hays crawling upon them with a gun in his hand. A bursting tide of blood through Jim’s veins paralleled the lightning flash of his thoughts. Death for both of them was terribly close. His gun was under his pillow. Helen knelt between him and the robber. A move of even the slightest kind would be fatal. Cunning must take precedence of action. He swerved his rigid gaze from the humped black form to Helen’s face. It was white as marble in moonlight. Her eyes showed the tremendous strain under which she labored. In that instant she could almost read his very thoughts. Her fingers still crossed his lips and they had begun to tremble.

  “It’s Hays,” he whispered, scarcely audibly. “Follow me — now.” Then, exerting all his will to speak naturally, he said aloud: “No, Miss Herrick, I’m sorry, but I can’t oblige you. I don’t approve of Hays’ kidnapping you, but it’s done. And I’m a member of his band. I would not think of going against him, let alone trying to run off with you.”

  There was a tense silence, fraught with much apprehension for Jim. Would she be able to play up to him? There was just a chance that Hays had not heard any of their whispers, in which case it was possible to deceive him. Helen comprehended. It was Jim Wall’s privilege then to see the reaction of a woman at a perilous moment.

  “I’ll give you the ransom money,” she said, quite clearly, and certainly most persuasively. “My brother will reward you otherwise.”

  “You can’t bribe me,” he rejoined. “And I wouldn’t advise you to try it on Smoky or any of the others.”

  “Hays may have had only money in his mind at first, but now—”

  “Don’t move, Jim!” came a low hard voice from the shadow.

  Helen gave a little gasp and sagged on her knees. Jim waited a moment.

  “I won’t, Hank,” he replied.

  Then Hays’ tall form loomed black above the rise of ground. He strode forward. If he had sheathed his gun, Jim would have made short work of that interview. But he held it half leveled, glancing darkly in the starlight.

  The robber chief gazed down upon Jim and Helen. His features were indistinguishable, but the poise of his head was expressive enough. Still, Jim sensed that he had been misled.

  “You cat!” he declared, roughly. “If I ketch you again — tryin’ to bribe any of my outfit — I’ll treat you so you won’t want to go back to your baby-faced brother. . . . Now you git to your tent!”

  Helen rose unsteadily and vanished in the gloom.

  “Jim Wall, you ain’t been with me long, an’ I don’t know you, but I’m takin’ this deal to heart,” Hays said, slowly. “I’m much obliged. I reckon you’re the only man in the outfit who could of withstood thet woman.”

  “No, you’re wrong, Hank. Smoky wouldn’t have listened to her. And I’m sure the others would have stood pat.”

  “My faith was damn near gone.”

  “That’s in you, Hank. You’ve no call to lose it. You’ve about split your gang over this woman.”

  “Wal, I’m not askin’ judgments from you or any of the outfit,” growled the chief, gloomily. “You’ll all be good an’ glad to git your share of the ransom.”

  “The thing is — boss — will we get it?” queried Jim, significantly.

  Hays made a violent move, like a striking snake. “What you mean by thet?”

  “I’m askin’ you.”

  “Air you insinuatin’ you mightn’t git yours?” demanded Hays. And Jim, used for years to sense peril, divined he was not far from death then. He had not moved a hand since Hays’ arrival. If he had had his gun within reach he would have ended that argument. But the chances were too greatly in Hays’ favor. Wit and cunning must see him through. He could feel how intensely the chief wanted to know what Jim knew.

  “No. You might say I was askin’ for all of us,” replied Jim, curtly.

  “Wal, I’ll git the outfit together an’ do some askin’, myself.”

  “It’s a good idea. It might prevent the split — provided you divide the money you stole from Herrick.”

  “I’ll wring thet white cat’s neck,” hissed the robber.

  “You’re wrong, boss. She didn’t tell me. She doesn’t know you robbed her brother. Sparrow confessed before he died.”

  Hays swore a mighty oath. “. . . An’ he squealed?”

  “Yes. To Smoky an’ me. We kept it secret until we had to tell. They knew somethin’ was wrong.”

  “All the time you knowed!” There was something pathetic in the fallen chieftain’s shame and amaze. By this he seemed to realize his crime.

  “You see, Hank, how your outfit has stood by you, even in your guilt.”

  “Ahuh! . . . If it ain’t too late — I’ll make amends,” he rejoined, hoarsely, and stalked away in the darkness.

  Jim lay back on his blankets with a weight of oppression removed. He had saved himself for the hour, but what would the outcome be? After deliberation it seemed he had put Hays in a corner from which there could be no retreat.

  CHAPTER 13

  NEXT MORNING JIM, who slept ill the rest of that night, was building a fire when Happy Jack, who had his bed under the shack, heard him and rolled out with his merry whistle.

  “Thet’s downright good of you, Jim,” he drawled. “I like cookin’, but I shore hate to rustle firewood an’ chop. When I was a kid I ‘most cut off my big toe.”

  “Happy, you’re a card,” replied Jim. “How in the hell can you whistle and smile when you know this outfit is primed to blow up?”

  “Wal, Jim, show me the sense of bein’ sore an’ unhappy, no matter what’s comin’ off,” rejoined Jack, philosophically. “As a feller grows older his mind sets one way or another. Look at Brad. Gamblin’ got to be breath of life to him an’ he lost thet breath. Look at Hays. Love of robbin’ lost him wife, family, ranch, respect. An’ look at you, Jim. Lone wolf, your hand always itchin’ wuss to throw your gun.”

  “So you figure me that way!” exclaimed Jim, in genuine surprise.

  “Reckon I see through a lot I don’t git credit for.”

  “You see through me wrong, Jack. I don’t ride around looking for trouble. But I can’t help being worked on by other men and conditions.”

  “Wal, I’m admittin’ Hays eased us into a rotten deal.”

  Jim had breakfast before the other men were up. It still wanted half an hour till sunrise. This was the beautiful time of day. All was balmy, sweet, fresh, fragrant. Mockingbirds were bursting their throats. To Jim their melody was indeed a mockery, not of other birds, but of men and life and nature. The dawn, the air, the sky, the birds, the cliffs — nothing that was there in Jim’s sight held any intimation of the hell about to break in Robbers’ Roost, nor of that captive imperiled woman! Jim hurried away on scout duty before Hays and his accusers had assembled at the camp fire.