Hidden Gold Part 20

"You'll...." The Senator threateningly raised his gorilla-like arms, but let them drop helplessly again. "How did they get into the safe? Did you leave it open?"

"Do you think I'm a fool?" Moran fixed his baleful eyes upon his employer, as he leaned heavily, but significantly, across the flat desk.

"Say, let's look ahead to to-morrow, not back to last night. Do you hear? I'll do the remembering of last night; you forget it!"

Rexhill tried to subdue him with his own masterful gaze, but somehow the power was lacking. Moran was in a dangerous frame of mind, and past the dominance of his employer. He had but one thought, that of vengeance upon the man who had misused him, to which everything else had for the time being to play second.

"You talk like I let them truss me up for fun," he went on. "I did it because I had to, because I was looking into the muzzle of a six-shooter in the hands of a desperate man; that was why. Do you get me? And I don't need to be reminded of it. No, by Heaven! My throat's as dry yet as a fish-bone, and every muscle in me aches like h.e.l.l! I'll remember it all right, and _he'll_ pay. Don't you have any worries about that."

Rexhill was sufficiently a captain of men to have had experience of such moods in the past, and he knew the futility of arguing. He carefully chose a cigar from his case, seated himself, and began to smoke.

Moran, apparently soothed by this concession to his temper, and a bit ashamed of himself, watched him for some moments in silence. When at last he spoke, his tone was more conciliatory.

"Have you heard from Washington?" he asked.

"I got a telegram this morning, saying that the matter is under advis.e.m.e.nt."

"Under advis.e.m.e.nt!" Moran snorted, in disgust. "That means that they'll get the cavalry here in time to fire a volley over our graves--ashes to ashes and dust to dust. What are you going to do about it?"

Rexhill blew a huge mouthful of fragrant smoke into the air.

"Frankly, Race, I don't think you're in a proper mood to talk."

"You're right." Something in Moran's voice suggested the explosion of a fire-arm, and the Senator looked at him curiously. "I'm through talking.

We've both of us talked too d.a.m.n much, and that's a fact."

"I'll be obliged to you," the Senator remarked, "if you'll remember that you draw a salary from me and that you owe me a certain amount of respect."

Moran laughed raucously.

"Respect! I don't owe you a d.a.m.n thing, Senator; and what you owe me you won't be able to pay if you sit here much longer waiting for something to turn up. You'll be ruined, that's what you'll be--ruined!" He brought his big hand down on the table with a thump.

"By your own carelessness. Now, look here, Race, I've made allowances for you, because...."

"You don't need to soft soap me, Senator; save that for your office seekers." The agent was fast working himself into another pa.s.sion. "I've not ruined you, and you know it. A safe's a safe, isn't it? Instead of ruining you, I'm trying to save you. If you go broke, you'll do it yourself with your pap and sentiment. But if I am to pull your chestnuts out of the fire for you, you've got to give me a free hand. I've got to fight fire with fire."

Rexhill wiped his gla.s.ses nervously, for despite his a.s.sumption of calm, his whole future swung upon the outcome of his Crawling Water venture.

If he appeared calm, it was not because he felt so, but because the schooling of a lifetime had taught him that the man who keeps cool usually wins.

"There's nothing to do but go on as we are headed now," he declared.

"Wade's discovery of our purpose is most unfortunate"--his voice shook a trifle--"but it can't be helped. In the legal sense, he has added to the list of his crimes, and we have more against him than we ever had. He now has three charges to face--murder, a.s.sault, and robbery. It rests with us whether he shall be punished by the courts for any of the three."

The Senator spoke emphatically in the effort to convince himself that his statements were practically true, but he avoided Moran's eyes as he did so. His show of optimism had little substance behind it, because now that his motives were likely to be bared to the public, he was too good a lawyer not to realize how little standing he would have before a jury, in that section at least; of course, Wade must realize this equally well and feel fortified in his own position. Rexhill's chief hope had been that the support of the cavalry from Fort Mackenzie would enable him to control the situation; but here, too, he was threatened by the unexpected hesitation of the authorities at Washington.

Moran, however, was frankly contemptuous of the prospect of help from that source. He had never believed greatly in it, although at the time it was first mentioned his enthusiasm for any plan of action had inspired him with some measure of the Senator's confidence. Now that his l.u.s.t of revenge made him intolerant of all opposition, he was thoroughly exasperated by the telegram received from Washington, and had no faith in aid from such a quarter.

"What if your cavalry doesn't come?" he demanded.

"Then we must rely upon the Sheriff here to maintain the law that he is sworn to support."

"Bah! He's weakening now. He's not forgetting that he's to spend the rest of his days in this town, after we've gone back East, or perhaps to h.e.l.l. Who's to look after him, then, if he's got himself in bad with the folks here? Senator"--Moran clumped painfully over to the safe and leaned upon it as he faced his employer--"it isn't cavalry that'll save you, or that old turkey buzzard of a sheriff either. I'm the man to do it, if anybody is, and the only way out is to lay for this man Wade and kidnap him." Rexhill started violently. "Kidnap him, and take him into the mountains, and keep him there with a gun at his head, until he signs a quit-claim. I've located the very spot to hide him in--Coyote Springs.

It's practically inaccessible, a natural hiding-place."

Rexhill turned a shade or two paler as he nervously brushed some cigar ashes from his vest and sleeve. He had already gone farther along the road of crime than he felt to be safe, but the way back seemed even more dangerous than the road ahead. The question was no longer one of ethics, but purely of expediency.

"We haven't time to wait on cavalry and courts," Moran went on. "I'm willing to take the risk, if you are. If we don't take it, you know what the result will be. We may make our get-away to the East, or we _may_ stop here for good--under ground. You have little choice either way. If you get out of this country, you'll be down and out. Your name'll be a byword and you'll be flat broke, a joke and an object of contempt the nation over. And it's not only yourself you've got to think of; you've got to consider your wife and daughter, and how they'll stand poverty and disgrace. Against all that you've got a chance, a fighting chance.

Are you game enough to take it?"

All that Moran said was true enough, for Rexhill knew that if he failed to secure control of Crawling Water Valley, his back would be broken, both politically and financially. He would not only be stripped of his wealth, but of his credit and the power which stood him in lieu of private honor. He would be disgraced beyond redemption in the eyes of his a.s.sociates, and in the bosom of his family he would find no solace for public sneers. Failure meant the loss forever of his daughter's respect, which might yet be saved to him through the glamour of success and the reflection of that tolerance which the world is always ready to extend toward the successful.

"You are right," he admitted, "in saying that I have my wife and daughter to consider, and that reminds me. I haven't told you that Helen overheard our conversation about Wade, in my room, the other day." He rapidly explained her indignation and threat of exposure. "I don't mean to say that your suggestion hasn't something to recommend it," he summed up, "but if Wade were to disappear, and she felt that he had been injured, I probably could not restrain her."

The agent leaned across the desk, leeringly.

"Tell her the truth, that I found Wade here in this room with Dorothy Purnell, at night; that they came here for an a.s.signation, because it was the one place in Crawling Water...."

Rexhill got to his feet with an exclamation of disgust.

"Well, say, then, that they came here to rifle the place, but that when I caught them they were spooning. Say anything you like, but make her believe that it was a lovers' meeting. See if she'll care then to save him."

The Senator dropped heavily back into his chair without voicing the protest that had been upon his tongue's end. He was quick to see that, contemptible though the suggestion was, it yet offered him a means whereby to save himself his daughter's respect and affection. The whole danger in that regard lay in her devotion to Wade, which was responsible for her interest in him. If she could be brought to feel that Wade was unworthy, that he had indeed wronged her, her own pride could be trusted to do the rest.

"If I thought that Wade were the man to make her happy," Rexhill puffed heavily, in restraint of his excitement.

"Happy? Him?" Moran's eyes gleamed.

"Or if there was a shred of truth--but to make up such a story out of whole cloth...."

"What's the matter with you, Senator? Why, I thought you were a master of men, a general on the field of battle!" The agent leaned forward again until his hot, whiskey-laden breath fanned the other man's face.

"I'm a father, Race, before I'm anything else in G.o.d's world."

"But it's true, Senator. True as I'm speaking. Ask any one in Crawling Water. Everybody knows that Wade and this Purnell girl are mad in love with each other."

"Is that true, Race?"

Rexhill looked searchingly into the inflamed slits which marked the location of the agent's eyes.

"As G.o.d is my witness. It's the truth now, whatever he may have thought of Helen before. He's been making a fool of her, Senator. I've tried to make her see it, but she won't. You'll not only be protecting yourself, but you'll do her a service." He paused as Rexhill consulted his watch.

"Helen will be over here in a few minutes. I promised to take a walk with her this morning."

"Are you game?"

"I'll do it, Race." Rexhill spoke solemnly. "We might as well fry for one thing as another." Grimacing, he shook the hand which the other offered him. "When will you start?"

"Now," Moran answered promptly. "I'll take three or four men with me, and we'll hang around Wade's ranch until we get him. He'll probably be nosing around the range trying to locate the gold, and we shouldn't have much trouble. When we've got him safe...." His teeth ground audibly upon each other as he paused abruptly, and the sound seemed to cause the Senator uneasiness.

"By the way, since I've turned near-a.s.sa.s.sin, you might as well tell me who shot Jensen." Rexhill spoke with a curious effort. "If Wade gets you, instead of you getting Wade, it may be necessary for me to know all the facts."