Brand Blotters Part 50

"I know you'll do your best for me," he said, with tears in his eyes.

"Make Lucas see this thing right. Don't let any fool detectives bunco him into refusing to pay the ransom. Put it to him as strongly as you can, that it will be either my life or the money. I have ordered him to pay it, and I want it paid."

Melissy nodded. "I'll tell him how it is, Mr. West. I know it will be all right. By Thursday afternoon we shall have you with us to dinner again.

Trust us."

"I do." He lowered his voice and glanced at MacQueen, who had been called aside to speak to one of his men. "And I'm glad you're going away from here. This is no place for you."

"It isn't quite the place for you, either," she answered, with a faint, joyless smile.

They started an hour before midday. Rosario had packed a lunch for both of them in MacQueen's saddlebags, for it was the intention of the latter to avoid ranches and traveled trails on the way down. He believed that the girl would go through with what she had pledged herself to do, but he did not mean to take chances of a rescue.

In the middle of the afternoon they stopped for lunch at Round-up Spring--a water hole which had not dried up in a dozen years. It was a somber meal. Melissy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower with every mile that brought her nearer the destiny into which this man was forcing her. Food choked her, and she ate but little. Occasionally, with staring eyes, she would fall into a reverie, from which his least word would startle her to a shiver of apprehension. This she always controlled after the first instinctive shudder.

"What's the matter with you, girl? I'm not going to hurt you any. I never hit a woman in my life," the man said once roughly.

"Perhaps you may, after you're married. It's usually one's wife one beats.

Don't be discouraged. You'll have the experience yet," she retorted, but without much spirit.

"To hear you tell it, I'm a devil through and through! It's that kind of talk that drives a man to drink," he flung out angrily.

"And to wife beating. Of course, I'm not your chattel yet, because the ceremony hasn't been read; but if you would like to antic.i.p.ate a few hours and beat me, I don't suppose there is any reason you shouldn't."

"Gad! How you hate me!"

Her inveteracy discouraged him. His good looks, his debonair manner, the magnetic charm he knew how to exert--these, which had availed him with other women, did not seem to reach her at all. She really gave him no chance to prove himself. He was ready to be grave or gay--to be a light-hearted boy or a blase man of the world--to adopt any role that would suit her. But how could one play up effectively to a chill silence which took no note of him, to a depression of the soul which would not let itself be lifted? He felt that she was living up to the barest letter of the law in fulfilling their contract, and because of it he steeled himself against her sufferings.

There was one moment of their ride when she stood on the tiptoe of expectation and showed again the sparkle of eager life. MacQueen had resaddled after their luncheon, and they were climbing a long sidehill that looked over a dry valley. With a gesture, the outlaw checked her horse.

"Look!"

Some quarter of a mile from them two men were riding up a wash that ran through the valley. The mesquite and the cactus were thick, and it was for only an occasional moment that they could be seen. Black and the girl were screened from view by a live oak in front of them, so that there was no danger of being observed. The outlaw got out his field gla.s.ses and watched the men intently.

Melissy could not contain the question that trembled on her lips: "Do you know them?"

"I reckon not."

"Perhaps----"

"Well!"

"May I look--please?"

He handed her the gla.s.ses. She had to wait for the riders to reappear, but when they did she gave a little cry.

"It's Mr. Bellamy!"

"Oh, is it?"

He looked at her steadily, ready to crush in her throat any call she might utter for help. But he soon saw that she had no intention of making her presence known. Her eyes were glued to the gla.s.ses. As long as the men were in sight she focused her gaze on them ravenously. At last a bend in the dry river bed hid them from view. She lowered the binoculars with a sigh.

"Lucky they didn't see us," he said, with his easy, sinister laugh. "Lucky for them."

She noticed for the first time that he had uncased his rifle and was holding it across the saddle-tree.

Night slipped silently down from the hills--the soft, cool, velvet night of the Arizona uplands. The girl drooped in the saddle from sheer exhaustion. The past few days had been hard ones, and last night she had lost most of her sleep. She had ridden far on rough trails, had been subjected to a stress of emotion to which her placid maiden life had been unused. But she made no complaint. It was part of the creed she had unconsciously learned from her father to game out whatever had to be endured.

The outlaw, though he saw her fatigue, would not heed it. She had chosen to set herself apart from him. Let her ask him to stop and rest, if she wanted to. It would do her pride good to be humbled. Yet in his heart he admired her the more, because she asked no favors of him and forbore the womanish appeal of tears.

His watch showed eleven o'clock by the moon when the lights of Mesa glimmered in the valley below.

"We'll be in now in half an hour," he said.

She had no comment to make, and silence fell between them again until they reached the outskirts of the town.

"We'll get off here and walk in," he ordered; and, after she had dismounted, he picketed the horses close to the road. "You can send for yours in the mornin'. Mine will be in the livery barn by that time."

The streets were practically deserted in the residential part of the town.

Only one man they saw, and at his approach MacQueen drew Melissy behind a large lilac bush.

As the man drew near the outlaw's hand tightened on the shoulder of the girl. For the man was her father--dusty, hollow-eyed, and haggard. The two crouching behind the lilacs knew that this iron man was broken by his fears for his only child, the girl who was the apple of his eye.

Not until he was out of hearing did Melissy open her lips to the stifled cry she had suppressed. Her arms went out to him, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. For herself she had not let herself break down, but for her father's grief her heart was like water.

"All right. Don't break down now. You'll be with him inside of half an hour," the outlaw told her gruffly.

They stopped at a house not much farther down the street, and he rang the bell. It took a second ring to bring a head out of the open window upstairs.

"Well?" a sleepy voice demanded.

"Is this Squire Latimer?"

"Yes."

"Come down. We want to get married."

"Then why can't you come at a reasonable hour?--consarn it!"

"Never mind that. There's a good fee in it. Hurry up!"

Presently the door opened. "Come in. You can wait in the hall till I get a light."

"No--I don't want a light. We'll step into this room, and be married at once," MacQueen told him crisply.

"I don't know about that. I'm not marrying folks that can't be looked at."

"You'll marry us, and at once. I'm Black MacQueen!"

It was ludicrous to see how the justice of the peace fell back in terror before the redoubtable bad man of the hills.