The Trail Horde Part 43

SLADE'S PRISONER

When Ruth regained the use of her senses she was lying on a bed in a small, evil-smelling room. An oil-lamp burned upon a little stand in one corner. A door--the only one--was closed--locked. She saw the stout wooden bar in its st.u.r.dy side slots.

At first she thought she was alone; and with a hope that made her breathless she lifted herself, swinging around until her feet were on the floor, intending to leap to the door, open it, and escape. A sound arrested her, a chuckle, grim and sinister, in a man's voice. She flashed swiftly around, to see Slade sitting in a chair near the foot of the bed. He was bending forward, his elbows on his knees, his knuckles supporting his chin, watching her with a wide, amused grin.

For a long, breathless s.p.a.ce she looked at him; noting the evil light in his eyes and the cruel, b.e.s.t.i.a.l curve of his lips. She saw how his gaze quickened as he watched her; how he had drawn one foot under him--obviously to be used as leverage for a rapid leap should she try to reach the door.

"It ain't no use, ma'am," he said; "you're here, an' you're goin' to stay for a while." He got up and walked to the door, placing his back against it and grinning widely as he looked down at her, as she yielded to a long shudder of dread.

During the silence that followed Slade's words Ruth could hear faint sounds from below--the clinking of gla.s.ses, the scuffling of feet, a low murmur of voices. She knew, then, that they had brought her to a room above a saloon--the Wolf, she supposed, for that was where Warden said he intended to bring her.

She watched Slade fearfully, divining that he meant to attack her. She could see that determination in his eyes and in his manner. He was still grinning, but now the grin had become set, satyric, hideous. It was a mere smirk. No mirth was behind it--nothing but pa.s.sion, intense, frightful.

She glanced swiftly around, saw a window beyond the foot of the bed with a ragged shade hanging over it. She knew the Wolf was only two stories in height, and she felt that if she threw herself out of the window she would suffer injury. But she meant to do it. She got her feet set firmly on the floor, and was about to run toward the window, when Slade leaped at her, seeing the reckless design in her eyes.

She had been moving when Slade leaped, and she evaded the arm he extended and slipped away from him. She heard Slade curse. She was almost at the window when he rushed at her again; and to keep him from grasping her she dodged, bringing up against the farther wall, while Slade, losing his balance, plunged against the window, crashing against the gla.s.s and sending a thousand broken fragments tinkling on the floor of the room and into the darkness outside.

She was alert to the advantage that had suddenly come to her, and she ran lightly to the door and tried to lift the bar. She got one end of it from a socket, but the other stuck. She pulled frantically at it. It finally came loose, with a suddenness that threw her off balance, and she reeled against the bed, almost falling.

She saw Slade coming toward her, a b.e.s.t.i.a.l rage in his eyes, and she threw herself again at the door, grasping it and throwing it wide open.

She tried to throw herself out of the opening, to the stairs that led straight downward into the barroom. But the movement was halted at its inception by Slade's arms, which went around her with the rigidity of iron hoops, quickly constricting. She got a glimpse of the room below--saw the bar and the men near it--all facing her way, watching her. Then Slade drew her back and closed the door.

He did not bar the door, for she was fighting him, now--fighting him with a strength and fury that bothered him for an instant. His strength, however, was greater than hers, and at last her arms were crushed against her sides with a pressure that almost shut off her breath.

Slade's face was close to hers, his lips loose; and his eyes were looking into hers with an expression that terrified her.

She screamed--once--twice--with the full power of her lungs. And then Slade savagely brought a big hand over her mouth and held it there. She fought to escape the clutch, kicking, squirming--trying to bite the hand. But to no avail. The terrible pressure on her mouth was suffocating her, and the room went dark as she continued to fight. She thought Slade had extinguished the light, and she was conscious of a dull curiosity over how he had done it. And then sound seem to cease.

She felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. She was conscious only of that terrible pressure over her mouth and nose. And finally she ceased to feel even that.

CHAPTER XL

PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS

Shorty and a dozen Circle L men--among them Blackburn and the three others who had been wounded in the fight with the rustlers on the plains the previous spring--had been waiting long in a gully at a distance of a mile or more from the Hamlin cabin. Shortly after dark they had filed into the gully, having come directly from the Circle L.

Hours before, they had got off their horses to stretch their legs, and to wait. And now they had grown impatient. It was cold--even in the gulley where the low moaning, biting wind did not reach them--and they knew they could have no fire.

"h.e.l.l!" exclaimed one man, intolerantly; "I reckon she's a whizzer!"

"Looks a heap like it," agreed Shorty. "Seems, if Hamlin couldn't get him headed this way--like he said he would--he ought to let us know."

"You reckon Hamlin's runnin' straight, now?" inquired Blackburn.

"Straight as a die!" declared Shorty. "If you'd been trailin' him like me an' the boys has, you'd know it. Trouble is, that Singleton is holdin' off. A dozen times we've been close enough to ketch Singleton with the goods--if he'd do the brandin'. But he don't, an' Hamlin has to do it--with Singleton watchin'. We've framed up on him a dozen times.

But he lets Hamlin run the iron on 'em. Hamlin eased that bunch into the gully just ahead, especial for tonight. I helped him drive 'em. An'

Hamlin said that tonight he'd refuse to run the iron on 'em--makin'

Singleton do it. An' then we'd ketch him doin' it. But I reckon Hamlin's slipped up somewheres."

"It ain't none comfortable here, with that wind whinin' that vicious,"

complained a cowboy. "An' no fire. Hamlin said ten o'clock, didn't he?

It's past eleven."

"It's off, I reckon," said Shorty. "Let's fan it to Hamlin's shack an'

say somethin' to him."

Instantly the outfit was on the move. With Shorty leading they swept out of the gully to the level and rode northward rapidly.

When they came in sight of the Hamlin cabin there was no light within, and the men sat for a time on their horses, waiting and listening. Then, when it seemed certain there was no one stirring, Shorty glanced at the horse corral.

Instantly he whispered to the other men:

"Somethin's wrong, boys. Hamlin's horse is gone, an' Ruth's pony!"

He dismounted and burst into the cabin, looking into the two bedrooms.

He came out again, scratching his head in puzzlement.

"I don't seem to sabe this here thing, boys. I know Ruth Hamlin ain't in the habit of wanderin' off alone at this time of the night. An' Hamlin was tellin' me that he sure was goin' with Singleton. It's a heap mysterious, an' I've got a hunch things ain't just what they ought to be!"

He turned toward the plain that stretched toward Willets. Far out--a mere dot in his vision--he detected movement. He straightened, his face paled.

"Somebody's out there, headin' for town. I'm takin' a look--the boss would want me to, an' I ain't overlookin' anything that'll do him any good!"

He leaped upon his horse, and the entire company plunged into the soft moonlight that flooded the plains between the cabin and Willets.

The ivory-handled pistols were still on Lawler's desk when his secretary softly opened a door and entered. The secretary smiled slightly at sight of the weapons, but he said no word as he advanced to the desk and placed a telegram before Lawler.

He stood, waiting respectfully, as Lawler read the telegram. It was from Moreton:

"Governor Lawler: There's something mighty wrong going on in Willets.

Slade and his gang struck town this morning. He was with Warden all day in the Wolf. Don't depend on the new sheriff."

Lawler got up, his face paling. He dismissed the secretary and then stood for several minutes looking down at the pistols on the desk. They offered a quick solution of the problem that confronted him.

At this minute he was conscious of one thing only--that Slade was in Willets. Slade, who had led the gang that had killed his men--Slade, whose face haunted Blackburn's dreams--the man the Circle L outfit held responsible for the ma.s.sacre that day on the plains above the big valley.

Lurking in the metal cylinders of the two weapons on the desk was that death which Warden, Singleton, Slade, and the others deserved at his hands. He took up the pistols, nestling their sinister shapes in his palms, while his blood rioted with the terrible l.u.s.t that now seized him--the old urge to do violence, the primal instinct to slay, to which he had yielded when Shorty told him of the things Blondy Antrim had done.

Another minute pa.s.sed while he fondled the weapons. Twice he moved as though to buckle the cartridge belt around his waist--shoving aside the black coat he wore, which would have hidden them. But each time he changed his mind.

He knew that if he wore them he would use them. The driving intensity of his desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Slade would overwhelm him if he should find they had harmed Ruth. The deadly pa.s.sion that held him in a mighty clutch would take no account of his position, of his duty to the state, or of the oath he had taken to obey and administer the laws.

While he silently fought the l.u.s.t that filled his heart the secretary came in. He started and then stood rigid, watching Lawler, seeming to divine something of the struggle that was going on before his eyes. He saw how Lawler's muscles had tensed, how his chin had gone forward with a vicious thrust--noted the awful indecision that had seized the man. As the secretary watched, he realized that Lawler was on the verge of surrendering to the pa.s.sions he was fighting--for Lawler had again taken up the cartridge belt and was opening his coat to buckle the belt around him.