The Big-Town Round-Up Part 29

The Arizonan interrupted with questions, crisp and incisive. He learned that a room had been prepared on the second floor for a woman.

Slim had made the arrangements. Joe had heard Durand's name mentioned, but knew nothing of the plans.

"I'll look the house over. Move along in front of me and don't make any mistakes. This six-gun is liable to permeate yore anatomy with lead."

The cattleman examined the first floor with an especial view to the exits. He might have to leave in a hurry. If so, he wanted to know where he was going. The plan of the second story was another point he featured as he pa.s.sed swiftly from room to room. From the laundry in the bas.e.m.e.nt he had brought up a coil of clothes-line. With this he tied Joe hand and foot. After gagging him, he left the man locked in a small rear room and took the key with him.

Clay knew that he was in a precarious situation. If Durand returned with Kitty and captured him here he was lost. The man would make no more mistakes. Certainly he would leave no evidence against him except that of his own tools. The intruder would probably not be killed openly. He would either simply disappear or he would be murdered with witnesses framed to show self-defense. The cattleman was as much outside the law as the criminals were. He had no legal business in this house. But one thing was fixed in his mind. He would be no inactive victim. If they got him at all it would be only after a fighting finish.

To Clay, standing at the head of the stairs, came a sound that stiffened him to a tense wariness. A key was being turned in the lock of the street door below. He moved back into the deeper shadows as the door swung open.

Two men entered. One of them cursed softly as he stumbled against a chair in the dark hall.

"Where's that rat Joe?" he demanded in a subdued voice.

Then came a click of the lock. The sound of the street rain ceased.

Clay knew that the door had been closed and that he was shut in with two desperate criminals.

What have they done with Kitty? Why was she not with them? He asked himself that question even as he slipped back into a room that opened to the left.

He groped his way through the darkness, for he dared not flash his light to guide him. His fingers found the edge of a desk. Round that he circled toward a closet he remembered having noted. Already the men were tramping up the stairs. They were, he could tell, in a vile humor. From this he later augured hopefully that their plans had not worked out smoothly, but just now more imperative business called him.

His arm brushed the closet door. Next moment he was inside and had closed it softly behind him.

And none too soon. For into the room came the gunmen almost on his heels.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO MEN IN A LOCKED ROOM

"Jerry'll raise h.e.l.l," a heavy voice was saying as they entered the room. "And that ain't all. We'll land in stir if we don't look out.

We just ducked a bad fall. The bulls pretty near had us that time we poked our nose out from the Park at Seventy-Second Street."

Some one pressed a b.u.t.ton and the room leaped to light. Through the open crack of the closed door Clay recognized Gorilla Dave. The second of the gunmen was out of range of his vision.

From the sound of creaking furniture Clay judged that the unseen man had sat down heavily. "It was that blowout queered us. And say--how came the bulls so hot on our trail? Who rapped to 'em?"

"Must 'a' been that b.o.o.b wit' the goil. He got busy quick. Well, Jerry won't have to salve the cops this time. We made our getaway all right," said Dave.

"Say, where's Joey?"

"Pulled a sneak likely. Wha's it matter? Listen! What's that?"

Some one was coming up the stairs.

The men in the room moved cautiously to the door. The hall light was switched on.

"'Lo, Jerry," Gorilla Dave called softly.

He closed the room door and the sound of the voices was shut off instantly.

The uninvited guest dared not step out of the closet to listen, for at any instant the men might reenter. He crouched in his hiding-place, the thirty-eight in his hand.

The minutes dragged interminably. More than once Clay almost made up his mind to steal out to learn what the men were doing. But his judgment told him he must avoid a brush with so many if possible.

The door opened again.

"Now beat it and do as I say if you know what's good for you," a bullying voice was ordering.

The owner of the voice came in and slammed the door behind him. He sat down at the desk, his back to the closet. Through the c.h.i.n.k Clay saw that the man was Jerry Durand.

From his vest pocket he took a fat black cigar, struck a match and lit it. He slumped down in the swivel chair. It took no seer to divine that his mind was busy working out a problem.

Clay stepped softly from his place of refuge, but not so noiselessly that the gangman did not detect his presence. Jerry swung round in the chair and leaped up with cat-like activity. He stood without moving, poised on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, his deep-set eyes narrowed to shining slits. It was in his thought to hurl himself headlong on the man holding steadily the menacing revolver.

"Don't you! I've got the dead wood on you," said the Arizonan, a trenchant saltness in his speech. "I'll shoot you down sure as h.e.l.l's hot."

The eyes of the men clashed, measuring each the other's strength of will. They were warily conscious even of the batting of an eyelid.

Durand's face wore an ugly look of impotent malice, but his throat was dry as a lime kiln. He could not estimate the danger that confronted him nor what lay back of the man's presence.

"What you doin' here?" he demanded.

"Makin' my party call," retorted Clay easily.

Jerry cursed him with a low, savage stream of profanity. The gangman enraged was not a sight pleasing to see.

"I reckon heaven, h.e.l.l, and high water couldn't keep you from cussin'

now. Relieve yore mind proper, Mr. Durand. Then we'll talk business,"

murmured Clay in the low, easy drawl that never suggested weakness.

The ex-prize-fighter's flow of language dried up. He fell silent and stood swallowing his furious rage. It had come home to him that this narrow-flanked young fellow with the close-gripped jaw and the cool, steady eyes was entirely unmoved by his threats.

"Quite through effervescing?" asked Clay contemptuously.

The gang leader made no answer. He chose to nurse his venom silently.

"Where's Kitty Mason?"

Still no answer.

"I asked you what you've done with Kitty Mason?"

"What's that to you?"

"I'm close-herdin' that li'l' girl and I'll not have yore dirty hands touch her. Where is she?"

"That's my business."