The Young Engineers in Arizona Part 38

"An automobile," muttered the gambler. "And there's another--and another! There must be six or eight of them out to-night, and all of 'em crammed with fighting men. A shot would bring two or three carloads of ugly fellows down upon us."

"What are we going to do, then?" demanded the hotel keeper, in a menacing tone.

"Wait awhile," urged the gambler. "You're seeing what the plan of the enemy is. They're circling about, but they're further out from the gully than we are. The cars will go on cutting larger and larger circle, and all the time getting farther away from us. In half an hour the cars and the men will be so far away that we need give no thought to them. Then we can attend to Reade and Hazelton."

"What are you going to do with them?" demanded Ashby in a whisper, his cunning eyes lighting with a fire of added eagerness.

"We'll get 'em awake, first of all," nodded Jim Duff. "Then we'll attend to them."

"Remember, they ruined my business!" whispered the hotel man.

"Well, didn't they ruin my business, too?" snarled Duff. "Didn't they cant like a pair of hypocrites, and turn hundreds of their workmen against coming in to play in my place? Didn't these young hounds keep me from winning thousands of dollars of railroad money? Ash, I tell you, these young fellows have hit me hard! First, they broke up my games.

Next, they talked their men out of going into Paloma and spending money for drink. Why, Ash, next thing you know, they would have brought missionaries to Paloma to convert men and to build churches!"

As Ashby glared at the unconscious boys from under his black brows he looked as though he believed them capable of all the wickedness that Jim Duff's imagination had charged against them.

"I can't wait!" groaned the hotel man. "Just one barrel of shot apiece into each of 'em!"

"No, no, no, Ash! Haven't I always been your good friend?"

"You surely have, Jim Duff," admitted the mad hotel man. "You're the one man alive to-night that I'd trust."

"Then trust me a little further," coaxed the gambler virtuously. "Trust to my brains tonight, George, and you'll feast on revenge!"

"But you keep me waiting so long for it!" complained the lunatic.

"Don't you trust me, George?"

"You know I do, Jim Duff."

"Then trust me a little longer. Be quiet, and be patient."

"But--"

"Sh!" warned Duff suddenly, throwing himself flat on the ground. "Down with you, Ash!"

"What is it?" whispered the hotel man in the gambler's ear as he too sank to the ground.

"Sh!" once more warned the gambler. "Use your eyes, George. Look out over the sand in the darkness. Do you see two men prowling this way?"

"Yes," a.s.sented the hotel man, after a pause.

"They're looking for us--enemies, George. Use all your cunning. Above all, be silent and lie low! Don't make a move, unless I tell you to do so. Show your trust in me, Ash, as you've never shown it before. If you don't, we'll be cheated out of our revenge!"

CHAPTER XXIII. RAFE AND JEFF MISCALCULATE

The two men whom the craven gambler had sighted were coming slowly onward, their movements suggesting a good deal of care and watchfulness.

Nor did they come in a wholly straight line. That they did not suspect the nearness of Jim Duff and his mad companion was plain at a glance.

"Burrow in the sand!" whispered the gambler in Ashby's ear. "Quiet! Be ready, but don't do anything unless I give you the word."

"When you do give me the word," trembled the hotel man, "I'll kill 'em both."

"Not unless we have to do so--remember!" ordered the gambler. "We want, if possible, to take 'em alive."

Let us now go back to the two men whom Duff and Ashby were watching so closely.

They were Rafe Bodson and Jeff Moore.

Both had come out of the recent fighting unharmed. Neither Rafe nor Jeff had fired a shot at the invading forces led by Hawkins. Instead, the pair had slipped stealthily away, until they had gotten out of the immediate zone of the hot firing. Then they hid under some bushes.

"An hour ago I'd have felt like a sneak, not standing by the gang any better," whispered Jeff uneasily.

"Same here," Rafe admitted. "In fact, I'm wondering whether I acted straight in running off like this."

"Aren't you sure about it in your own mind?" asked Jeff slowly.

"Almost," Rafe returned. "All that bothers me is not sticking by the same crowd that we started out with to-night. As for Jim Duff--"

"He's poison, and deadly poison at that," broke in Jeff.

"That's just what he is, pardner."

"Yet I used to like Duff pretty well."

"So did I," nodded Jeff. "But that was when I thought he had some sand."

"The fellow's a skulking coyote!"

"A coyote is brave, compared with Jim Duff," contended Jeff Moore.

"Reade and Hazelton showed the real sand!"

"I never thought tenderfeet could be as brave," glowed Moore.

"Jeff, I reckon Reade and Hazelton aren't real tenderfeet any more.

They've been west some time. But, then, such fellows wouldn't be tenderfeet even if they lived in New Jersey all the time. Courage belongs in some fellows, no matter where they work."

"The fighting seems to be over," observed Jeff Moore.

"Then the friends of the two engineers must have found them," suggested Bodson.

"It doesn't sound like it over there. The newcomers seem to be doing a lot of hunting in the gully."