Bucky O'Connor Part 16

"I didn't say you had, but you'll get along just as well without them,"

she answered with a cool little laugh as she rose.

"I'd like to discuss that proposition with you more at length. May I call on you some evening this week, Miss Mackenzie?"

There was a sparkle of hidden malice in her answer. "You're too late, Mr. Collins. We'll have to leave it undiscussed. I'm going to leave to-day for my uncle s ranch, the Rocking Chair."

He was distinctly disappointed, though he took care not to show it.

Nevertheless, the town felt empty after her train had gone. He was glad when later in the day a message came calling him to Epitaph. It took him at least seventy-five miles nearer her.

Before he had been an hour at Epitaph the sheriff knew he had struck gold this time. Men were in town spending money lavishly, and at a rough description they answered to the ones he wanted. Into the Gold Nugget Saloon that evening dropped Val Collins, big, blond, and jaunty.

He looked far less the vigorous sheriff out for business than the gregarious cowpuncher on a search for amus.e.m.e.nt.

Del Hawkes, an old-time friend of his staging days, pounced on him and dragged him to the bar, whence his glance fell genially on the roulette wheel and its devotees, wandered casually across the impa.s.sive poker and Mexican monte players, took in the enthroned musicians, who were industriously murdering "La Paloma," and came to rest for barely an instant at a distant faro table. In the curly-haired good-looking young fellow facing the dealer he saw one of the men he had come seeking. Nor did he need to look for the hand with the missing trigger finger to be sure it was York Neil--that same gay, merry-hearted York with whom he used to ride the range, changed now to a miscreant who had elected to take the short cut to wealth.

But the man beside Neil, the dark-haired, pallid fellow from whose presence something at once formidable and sinister and yet gallant seemed to breathe--the very sight of him set the mind of Collins at work busily upon a wild guess. Surely here was a worthy figure upon whom to set the name and reputation of the notorious Wolf Leroy.

Yet the sheriff's eyes rested scarce an instant before they went traveling again, for he wanted to show as yet no special interest in the object of his suspicions. The gathering was a motley one, picturesque in its diversity. For here had drifted not only the stranded derelicts of a frontier civilization, but selected types of all the turbid elements that go to make up its success. Mexican, millionaire, and miner brushed shoulders at the roulette-wheel. Chinaman and cow-puncher, Papago and plainsman, tourist and tailor, bucked the tiger side by side with a democracy found nowhere else in the world. The click of the wheel, the monotonous call of the croupier, the murmur of many voices in alien tongues, and the high-pitched jarring note of boisterous laughter, were all merged in a medley of confusion as picturesque as the scene itself.

"Business not anyways slack at the Nugget," ventured Collins, to the bartender.

"No, I don't know as 'tis. Nearly always somethin' doing in little old Epitaph," answered the public quencher of thirsts, polishing the gla.s.s top of the bar with a cloth.

"Playing with the lid off back there, ain't they?" The sheriff's nod indicated the distant faro-table.

"That's right, I guess. Only blue chips go."

"It's Wolf Leroy--that Mexican-looking fellow there," Hawkes explained in a whisper. "A bad man with the gun, they say, too. Well, him and York Neil and Scott Dailey blew in last night from their mine, up at Saguache. Gave it out he was going to break the bank, Leroy did. Backing that opinion usually comes high, but Leroy is about two thousand to the good, they say."

"Scott Dailey? Don't think I know him."

"That shorthorn in chaps and a yellow bandanna is the gentleman; him that's playing the wheel so constant. You don't miss no world-beater when you don't know Scott. He's Leroy's Man Friday. Understand they've struck it rich. Anyway, they're hitting high places while the mazuma lasts."

"I can't seem to locate their mine. What's its brand?"

"The Dalriada. Some other guy is in with them; fellow by the name of Hardman, if I recollect; just bought out a livery barn in town here."

"Queer thing, luck; strikes about as unexpected as lightning. Have another, Del?"

"Don't care if I do, Val. It always makes me thirsty to see people I like. Anything new up Tucson way?"

The band had fallen on "Manzanilla," and was rending it with variations when Collins circled round to the wheel and began playing the red. He took a place beside the bow-legged vaquero with the yellow bandanna knotted loosely round his throat. For five minutes the cow-puncher attended strictly to his bets. Then he cursed softly, and asked Collins to exchange places with him.

"This place is my hoodoo. I can't win--" The sentence died in the man's throat, became an inarticulate gurgle of dismay.

He had looked up and met the steady eyes of the sheriff, and the surprise of it had driven the blood from his heart. A revolver thrust into his face could not have shaken him more than that serene smile.

Collins took him by the arm with a jovial laugh meant to cover their retreat, and led him into one of the curtained alcove rooms. As they entered he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Leroy and Neil were still intent on their game. Not for a moment, not even while the barkeeper was answering their call for liquor, did the sheriff release Scott from the rigor of his eyes, and when the attendant drew the curtain behind him the officer let his smile take on a new meaning.

"What did I tell you, Scott?"

"Prove it," defied Scott. "Prove it--you can't prove it."

"What can't I prove?"

"Why, that I was in that--" Scott stopped abruptly, and watched the smile broaden on the strong face opposite him. His dull brain had come to his rescue none too soon.

"Now, ain't it funny how people's thoughts get to running on the same thing? Last time I met up with you there you was collecting a hundred dollars and keep-the-change cents from me, and now here you are spending it. It's ce'tinly curious how both of us are remembering that little seance in the Pullman car."

Scott took refuge in a dogged silence. He was sweating fear.

"Yes, sir. It comes up right vivid before me. There was you a-trainin'

your guns on me--"

"I wasn't," broke in Scott, falling into the trap.

"That's right. How come I to make such a mistake? Of cou'se you carried the sack and York Neil held the guns."

The man cursed quietly, and relapsed into silence.

"Always buy your clothes in pairs?"

The sheriff's voice showed only a pleasant interest, but the outlaw's frightened eyes were puzzled at this sudden turn.

"Wearing a bandanna same color and pattern as you did the night of our jamboree on the Limited, I see. That's mightily careless of you, ain't it?"

Instinctively a shaking hand clutched at the kerchief. "It don't cut any ice because a hold-up wears a mask made out of stuff like this."

"Did I say it was a mask he wore?" the gentle voice quizzed.

Scott, beads of perspiration on his forehead, collapsed as to his defense. He fell back sullenly to his first position: "You can't prove anything."

"Can't I?" The sheriff's smile went out like a snuffed candle. Eyes and mouth were cold and hard as chiseled marble. He leaned forward far across the table, a confident, dominating a.s.surance painted on his face.

"Can't I? Don't you bank on that. I can prove all I need to, and your friends will prove the rest. They'll be falling all over themselves to tell what they know--and Mr. Dailey will be holding the sack again, while Leroy and the rest are slipping out."

The outlaw sprang to his feet, white to the lips.

"It's a d.a.m.ned lie. Leroy would never--" He stopped, again just in time to bite back the confession hovering on his lips. But he had told what Collins wanted to know.

The curtain parted, and a figure darkened the doorway--a slender, lithe figure that moved on springs. Out of its sardonic, devil-may-care face gleamed malevolent eyes which rested for a moment on Dailey, before they came home to the sheriff.

"And what is it Leroy would never do?" a gibing voice demanded silkily.

Scott pulled himself together and tried to bluff, but at the look on his chief's face the words died in his throat.

Collins did not lift a finger or move an eyelash, but with the first word a wary alertness ran through him and starched his figure to rigidity. He gathered himself together for what might come.

"Well, I am waiting. What it is Leroy would never do?" The voice carried a scoff with it, the implication that his very presence had stricken conspirators dumb.

Collins offered the explanation.