The Bells of San Juan Part 10

"When you add to that combination," he muttered, "a sure-enough angel come to doctor a man. . . ."

"Growing delirious again," laughed Virginia. "Give him a little brandy, Mr. Norton. Then a smoke if he's dying for one. Then we'll try to get a little sleep, all of us. You see, I had virtually no sleep on the train last night and to-day has been a big day for me. If I'm going to do your friend any good I've got to get three winks. And, unless you're made out of reinforced sheet-iron, it's the same for you.

You can lie down close to Mr. Lane so that he can wake you easily if he needs us. Now," and she rose, still smiling, but suddenly looking unutterably weary, "where is the guest-chamber?"

She did not tell them that not only last night, but the night before she had sat up in a day coach, saving every cent she could out of the few dollars which were to give her and her brother a new start in the world; there were many things which Virginia Page knew how to keep to herself.

"This way," said Norton, taking up the lantern. "We can really make you more comfortable than you'd think."

At the very least he could count confidently on treating her to a surprise. She followed him for forty or fifty feet toward the end of the cave and to an irregular hole in the side wall, through this, and into another cave, smaller than the first, but as big as an ordinary room. The floor was strewn with the short needles of the mountain pine. As she turned, looking about her, she noted first another opening in a wall suggesting still another cave; then, feeling a faint breath of the night air on her cheek she saw a small rift in the outer sh.e.l.l of rock and through it the stars thick in the sky.

"May you sleep well in Jim Galloway's hang-out," said Norton lightly.

"May you not be troubled with the ghosts of the old cliff-dwellers whose house this was before our time. And may you always remember that if there is anything in the world that I can do for you all you have to do is let me know. Good night."

"Good night," she said.

He had left the lantern for her. She placed it on the floor and went across her strange bedroom to the hole in the rock through which the stars were shining. It seemed impossible that those stars out there were the same stars which had shone upon her all of her life long. She could fancy that she had gone to sleep in one world and now had awakened in another, coming into a far, unknown territory where the face of the earth was changed, where men were different, where life was new. And though her body was tired her spirit did not droop. Rather an old exhilaration was in her blood. She had stepped from an old, outworn world into a new one, and with a quick stir of the pulses she told herself that life was good where it was strenuous and that she was glad that Virginia Page had come to San Juan.

"And now," she mused sleepily when at last she lay down upon heaped-up pine-needles and drew over her the blanket Norton had brought, "I am going to sleep in the hang-out of Jim Galloway and the old home of the cliff-dwellers! Virginia Page, you are a downright lucky girl!"

Whereupon she blew out her lantern, smiled faintly at the stars shining upon her, sighed wearily and went to sleep.

CHAPTER VIII

JIM GALLOWAY'S GAME

As full consciousness of her surroundings returned slowly to her, Virginia Page at first thought that she had been awakened by the aroma of boiling coffee. Then, sitting up, wide awake, she knew that Norton had come to the doorway of her separate chamber and had called. She threw off her blanket and got up hastily.

It was still dark. She imagined that she had merely dozed and that Norton was summoning her because Brocky Lane was worse. A dim glow shone through the cave entrance, that flickering, uncertain light eloquent of a camp-fire. As her hands went swiftly and femininely to her hair, she heard Norton's voice in a laughing remark. Only then she knew that she had slept three or four hours, that the dawn was near, that it was time for her to return to San Juan.

"Good morning," she said brightly.

Norton, squatting by the fire, frying-pan in hand, turned and answered her nod; Brocky Lane, flat on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, a cigarette in his mouth, twisted a little where he lay, his eyes eager upon his doctor. Virginia came on into the full light, striking the pine-needles from her riding-habit.

"Time to eat and ride," said Norton, turning again to his task. "Bacon and coffee and exercise. Have you rested?"

"Perfectly. And Mr. Lane?"

"Me?" said Brocky. "Feeling fine."

Norton gave her a cup of warm water to wash her hands. Then she made a second, very careful examination of Brocky's wound, cleansing it and adjusting a fresh bandage.

"I want to start in half an hour," said the sheriff. "There'll be light enough then so that we can make time getting down to the horses and yet not enough light to show us up to a chance early rider down below. Then we'll swing off to the west, make a wide bend, ride through Las Estrellas and get back into San Juan when we please. That is you will; I'll leave you outside of Las Estrellas, showing you the way. And, while we eat, I am going to tell you something."

"About Galloway?" she asked quickly. "Explaining what you meant by Galloway's hang-out?"

"Yes. And more than that."

For a little she stood, looking at him very gravely. Then she spoke in utter frankness.

"Mr. Norton, I think that I can see your position; you were so circ.u.mstanced through Mr. Lane's being hurt that you had to bring either Dr. Patten or me here. You decided it would be wiser to bring me. There is something of a compliment in that, isn't there?"

"You don't know Caleb Patten yet!" growled Brocky a bit savagely.

"Already it seems to me," she went on, "that you have a pretty hard row to hoe. It is evident that you have discovered a sort of thieves'

headquarters here; that, for your own reasons, you don't want it known that you have found it. To say that I am not curious about it all would be talking nonsense, of course. And yet I can a.s.sure you that I hold you under no obligation whatever to do any explaining. You are the sheriff and your job is to get results, not to be polite to the ladies."

But Norton shook his head.

"You know what you know," he said seriously. "I think that if you know a little more you will more readily understand why we must insist on keeping our mouths shut . . . all of us."

"In that case," returned the girl, "and before you boil that coffee into any more hopelessly black a concoction than it already is, I am ready to drink mine and listen. Coffee, Mr. Lane?"

"Had mine, thanks," answered Brocky. "Spin the yarn, Rod."

Norton put down his frying-pan, the bacon brown and crisp, and rose to his feet.

"Will you come this way a moment, Miss Page?" he asked. "To begin with, seeing is believing."

She followed him as she had, last night, back into the cave in which she had slept. But Norton did not stop here. He went on, Virginia still following him, came to that other hole in the rock wall which she had noted by the lantern light.

"In here," he said. "Just look."

He swept a match across his thigh, holding it up for her. She came to his side and looked in. First she saw a number of small boxes, innocent appearing affairs which suggested soda-crackers. Beyond them was something covered with a blanket; Norton stepped by her and jerked the covering aside. Startled, puzzled by what she saw, she looked to him wonderingly. Placed neatly, lying side by side, their metal surfaces winking back at the light of Norton's match, were a number of rifles. A score of them, fifty, perhaps.

"It looks like a young revolution!" she cried, her gaze held, her eyes fascinated by the unexpected.

"You've seen about everything now," he told her, the red ember of a burnt-out match dropping to the floor. "Those boxes contain cartridges. Now let's go back to Brocky."

"But they'll see that you have been here. . . ."

"I'll come back in a minute with the lantern; I want a further chance to look things over. Then I'll put the blanket back and see that not even that charred match gives us away. And we'd better be eating and getting started."

With a steaming tin of black coffee before her, a brown piece of bacon between her fingers, she forgot to eat or drink while she listened to Norton's story. At the beginning it seemed incredible; then, her thoughts sweeping back over the experiences of these last twenty-four hours, her eyes having before them the picture of a sheriff, grim-faced and determined, a wounded man lying just beyond the fire, the rough, rudely arched walls and ceiling of a cave man's dwelling about her, she deemed that what Norton knew and suspected was but the thing to be expected.

"Jim Galloway is a big man," the sheriff said thoughtfully. "A very big man in his way. My father was after him for a long time; I have been after him ever since my father's death. But it is only recently that I have come to appreciate Jim Galloway's caliber. That's why I could never get him with the goods on; I have been looking for him in the wrong places.

"I estimated that he was making money with the Casa Blanca and a similar house which he operates in Pozo; I thought that his entire game lay in such layouts and a bit of business now and then like the robbing of the Las Palmas man. But now I know that most of these lesser jobs are not even Galloway's affair, that he lets some of his crowd like the Kid or Antone or Moraga put them across and keep the spoils, often enough. In a word, while I've been looking for Jim Galloway in the brush he has been doing his stunt in the big timber! And now. . . ."

The look in Norton's eyes suggested that he had forgotten the girl to whom he was talking. "And now I have picked up his trail!"

"And that's something," interposed Brocky Lane, a flash of fire in his own eyes. "Considering that no man ever knew better than Jim Galloway how to cover tracks."

"You see," continued Norton, "Jim Galloway's bigness consists very largely of these two things: he knows how to keep his hands off of the little jobs, and he knows how to hold men to him. Bisbee, of Las Palmas, goes down in the Casa Blanca; his money, perhaps a thousand dollars, finds its way into the pockets of Kid Rickard, Antone, and maybe another two or three men. Jim Galloway sees what goes on and does no petty haggling over the spoils; he gets a strangle-hold on the men who do the job; it costs him nothing but another lie or so, and he has them where he can count on them later on when he needs such men.

Further, if they are arrested, Jim Galloway and Galloway's money come to the front; they are defended in court by the best lawyers to be had, men are bribed and they go free. As a result of such labors on Galloway's part I'd say at a rough guess that there are from a dozen to fifty men in the county right now who are his men, body and soul.

"With a gang like that at his back, a man of Galloway's type has grown pretty strong. Strong enough to plan . . . yes, and by the Lord, carry out! . . . the kind of game he's playing right now.