The Missourian Part 61

The stains Rodrigo meant were on a little ivory cross which he had taken from his jacket. The emblem served him to lash his emotions, to goad his precious sense of wrong. He studied the cross intently; then, by a vast and excruciating effort, thrust it into Driscoll's hand.

"Yes, yes," he cried, "you must take it! He said so."

"He?"

"Si, senor, he who shares my wrong, Don Anastasio Murguia."

"Murgie!" exclaimed the bewildered American. "But--why, hombre, I haven't seen the old skinflint since--since he and I both were court-martialled by Lopez!"

"Still I promised him to send the cross to you, because you will have a chance to give it to him. He said so."

"Oh, he did?" But Driscoll put the trinket in his pocket, not unwilling to see more of this foolish drama in Latin-American sentiment. "Now then, Rod," he went on impatiently, "you haven't explained yet how you happen to find her again."

"That," replied the outlaw, "was _his_ part of the bargain."

"Whose?"

"Anastasio Murguia's."

"Rod, you talk like a----"

"But no, senor, it's because you Americans cannot understand. Murguia also believes in vengeance. I haven't seen him either, not since he sold his hacienda over a year ago. But I do know that he or some spy of his is in the capital, for a messenger from him came to me in the mountains.

The messenger said that the Marquesa d'Aumerle was leaving for Queretero. If I captured her, it would be vengeance in kind. But Murguia wanted pay for his information. He wanted that cross--it was his daughter's--and I was to send it to him through you. Dios mio, but I had to hurry! A little more, and the Marquesa would have been inside your lines."

"She is already," Driscoll corrected him, "and so are you. Will you fight it out, or surrender?"

He pointed to the Grays as he spoke. They had dismounted, and each man had a rifle at aim across his saddle. It was a reminiscence out of Driscoll's boyhood of Indians and the Santa Fe trail. But Don Rodrigo only smiled.

"You want the coach first?" he said.

"No!" Driscoll retorted. "You're the one that's wanted, and you can either wait for your trial, or be shot now, fighting. The coach will have to take its chances. But see here, if the firing once starts, not a thief among you will be left standing----"

It was a perilous "bluff," and none might say if it would have broken the deadlock. But the outlaw interrupted.

"Listen! What's that?"

"Oh, nothing. We're only throwing a few bombs into Queretero."

"Only!" The brigand's eyes flashed, and his voice was filled with envy.

Throwing bombs among the traitors?--and magnificence like that had grown common! Yet he, whose patriotism was a pa.s.sion that fed and thrived upon itself, must be barred from such exquisite satiety.

Driscoll understood, and thought it droll. First there was that loyal Imperialist, Don Tiburcio, frothing chagrin because he had had to desert. And now here was this rabid Republican, heart broken over being outlawed from the ranks of his country's avengers.

Again Rodrigo interrupted, more excitedly yet. "Senor, senor, you don't shoot them that way every day? What does it mean?"

Both gazed across the plain to the city of domes under the green hills.

Driscoll's chin raised, and he listened intently. What had commenced like indolent target practice against a beleaguered town had suddenly burst into a terrific cannonading chorus. More, there was musketry, vicious and sustained. There were troops deploying over the plain.

Something critical was happening. If it were the supreme rally of the famishing Empire!

Driscoll stirred uneasily. He glanced at his outlaw. He thought of the coach. To leave her with these ruffians? To miss a fight? Here was a quandary!

"You are not going?" Rodrigo cried at him furiously. "Now, now," he raged, "is the hour of triumph for the incarnation of popular sovereignty. Go, I say, go, the Republic needs you!"

Until those words Rodrigo had held the situation. With them he lost it, and Driscoll was master. And Driscoll grew serene, and very sweet of manner. He began filling a cob pipe. A nod of his head indicated the coach as a condition of his going.

"Look, look!" Rodrigo shouted. "Oh, que viva--they're running! We've smoked them out! We've smoked them out!"

Driscoll swept the country with his gla.s.ses. Thousands of men were running like frightened rabbits down the Cimatario slope, and spreading as a fan over the gra.s.sy plain. Mountain pieces boomed farewell behind them, until in abject panic they cast away carbines and scrambled the faster. But other troops were pushing up the slope opposite the town, and these were ordered ranks of infantry. Up and up they climbed, to trench after trench, and the howitzers one by one stopped short their roar. When Driscoll laid down the gla.s.ses, his face was white. Rodrigo's glee turned to uncertainty.

"What--what----"

"Smoked out, you fool? We're the ones smoked out!"

"But those runaways?"

"Are our own men, ten thousand of 'em, raw conscripts to support our batteries on the Cimatario."

"But the Cimitario?" Rodrigo knew by instinct the crucial importance of the black cone.

"The Cimitario is taken by the Imperialists!"

Driscoll did not forget, however, the nearer contest, and as the Mexican grew frantic, he was the more coolly indifferent.

"Max has everything his own way now," he added soothingly. "He can either evacuate, or go around on the north side and thrash Escobedo."

But the Grays were clamoring for action. "By cracken, Din, hurry up there!" yelled Cal Grinders.

Driscoll raised his palm, waving the fingers for patience. He scanned the plain again. The Imperialist ranks were breaking. Hungry men rushed on the besiegers' camps, s.n.a.t.c.hing untouched breakfasts. The townsmen poured out among the uniforms, and darted greedily in every direction.

The llano was alive with scurrying human beings. Driscoll could well wait for the psychology of Republican defeat on Don Rodrigo, since at the same time he awaited the effects of victory on a starving army. The Grays fretted, but they knew their colonel was never more to be depended upon than when his blood grew cold like this.

"If," Driscoll observed pleasantly to the Mexican, "Escobedo isn't already making tracks for San Luis----"

It was the last straw. The patriot brigand jerked off his sombrero and flung it to the ground. He gestured wildly over the plain, and he gestured in the American's face. He choked on words that boiled up too fast.

"You--you--traitor!" he spluttered. There was actually froth on his lips.

"We haven't," Driscoll reminded him with exceeding gentleness, "settled this other yet," and again he nodded to the coach.

"That--that is why you wait?" Rodrigo had forgotten his prize entirely.

"Take her, then, take her! Only go, go, kill all the traitors!"

"After you, caballero," Driscoll returned with Mexican politeness. He wanted to be sure of the outlaw's departure, since holding him prisoner was now out of the question. But Rodrigo chafed only to be gone. With a reed whistle he signaled his little demon centaurs, then at a touch of the spurs his horse leaped forward and all the band clattered close on his heels.

"Sure anxious to escape," thought Driscoll. But he stared after them in wonder. Instead of turning to the safety of the mountains, they charged straight ahead on the town, straight against the Empire, and in any case, straight into the maw of justice. Behind, the coach and mules stood high and dry in the road. Driscoll was at once all action.

"Shanks," he called.

Mr. Boone hurried to him from the Grays.