Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

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They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the
care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence
until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be
no reason why he should not do well.

It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was
confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the
riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a
better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon
the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while
Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.

The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One
thing was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies
before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his
chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of
the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike
first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift
blow would be a deadly one.

CHAPTER XII

THE ESCAPE

For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch
by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her
bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.

In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along
the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened
one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a
trip hammer.

Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in
the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal.
Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.

But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the
dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so
often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To
judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.

The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner
and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the
moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom
stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into
the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what
cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite
on the other side of the road.

Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key
to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it
behind her.

"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.

"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"

She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you
tied?"

"Yes--hands and feet."

A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a
few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the
door opened and a head was thrust in.

"What's the row, Tom?"

Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing
began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."

But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the
fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.

"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the
cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.

They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged
from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the
cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.

"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.

She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He
would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in
his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.

"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as
not to arouse suspicion."

"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck.

"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave
this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."

With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an
apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.

She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log
cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing,
and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.

"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of
excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp.
Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over.
This moment she chose for her entrance.

"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the
doorway.

"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.

"But--how?"

"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By
God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.

Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and
coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too,
fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"

"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools,"
snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter."

Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought
you kept him guarded."

"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.

"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.

"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a
meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers
answered that the prisoner was safe so far.

"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm.
"Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found.
Beats me how they got away so slick."

Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to
be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she
had been told to do.

She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head
quickly when she entered.

"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity,"
he began.

"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one
of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man
as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a
neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves
on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were
both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller
slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to
draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail
above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."

"But what am I to do here?"

"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go,
the chances are they would have caught you again."

"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"

"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the
sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to
escape the law that has been written?"

"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."

"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."

"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his
old sneer.

She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor
Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a
punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict
it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."

"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a
wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the
reapers."

He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended
to block the way.

"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when
the news comes."

"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his
derisive smile.

"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you
shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little
wildly.

"If you put it that way----"

"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend
to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back
to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."

"Just as you say."

"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all
our lives are planned for your amusement."

"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're
right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in
your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."

"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you.
You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and
you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance
for you to get away."

"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.

"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs.
Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the
door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else
knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."

"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a
low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the
decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is
that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of
this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a
chance to prove them."

She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And
with that she left him to himself.

Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but
they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her,
and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism
to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.

The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her
again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to
find her in the passage with a tray of food.

"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what
happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys
are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry.
Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the
tray on the table.

Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up
her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great
fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her
hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the
passage and down the back stairs.

He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as
silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and
charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the
road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.

How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray
morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his
absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.

He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the
threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.

"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.

The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not
think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming
accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She
let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.

"It's Phil, isn't it?"

There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll
explain," said Buck Weaver.

Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the
stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young
mistress.

"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."

"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.

"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't
know what I thought."

Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very
curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in
everybody's business.

"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.

"I don't think. I saw him."

"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of
gentle scorn.

"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."

"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go
and see myself. You stay here."

She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I
wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now,
when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."

"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl
maintained obstinately.

"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."

Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from
Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had
been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she
eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she
could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to
her to save the man in her room.

CHAPTER XIII

A MISTAKE

At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the
sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The
Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they
could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made
an end of him.

Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of
the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go
to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate
might have in store.

When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to
leave.

She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there,
rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after
the breakfast.

"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a
sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."

"I promise," he told her.

She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face
was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.

"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read,
without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."

"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You _will_ be
careful, won't you?"

"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."

Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front
door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.

"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----"

"But it won't. Why should it?"

"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."

"Will she keep it quiet?"

"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the
boys."

"All right," he nodded.

"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said
piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.

He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will
be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going
to be on the job all day."

"You're so good!"

"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the
dust robe, without looking at her.

But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of
hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in
her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence
and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed
himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing
him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to
his disadvantage.

He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease.
But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so
gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force
in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good
humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he
had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested
weakness.

From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could
not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could.
And because he was what he was--a small man, full of vanity and
conceit--he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the
role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off
for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he
learned soon that it was no smiling matter.

Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two
had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly
quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears.

"Oh, Mr. Keller--I've done it now! I didn't think----I thought--"

"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles.
"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon
returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail.

"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room."

Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?"

"I told him--I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made
him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he
comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry,
miserably aware that she had made a mess of things.

"I just begged him not to tell--and he had promised. But he says it's
his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller--if Mr. Weaver is
there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame."

"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet--if
you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut."

"Oh, I will--I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word--not to
anybody."

"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet
little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his
mind," he said grimly.

"Please--if you could. I don't want to start any trouble."

Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the
trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to
gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world.

"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix
it up with Tom," he promised.

He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was
hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons,
because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though
neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had
observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in
her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he
had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he
had run away and left her alone.

Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter
stopped him with a lift of the hand.

"What's your sweat?"

"Want to see me, do you?"

Keller nodded easily.

"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute."

"Press of business on to-day?"

"It's _my_ business."

"I'm going to make it mine."

"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort.

"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over."

"No."

"Yes."

Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.

"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.

"We can, but we won't."

"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."

"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man--a
brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.

Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did
not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about
this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour
without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he
stopped.

"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed,
attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.

"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the
American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no,
sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused
aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.

Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn
foolishness?"

"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and
me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a
thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His
voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his
eyes that showed him prepared for any move.

So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral
Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.

"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business
to keep me here."

"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."

The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and
twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain.
Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of
his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and
stepped back.

"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that
gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.

"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take
a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."

"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told
you that lie."

He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the
face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to
pay for it.

"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's
been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand
the gaff for you. Now it's due."

"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said
that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----"

"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take
it."

Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his
opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was
entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten
man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he
took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as
did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from
the marrow out.

Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight
in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But
now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing
blows.

Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see
nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed
out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left,
came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one
hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to
clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an
uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.

"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.

"Sure of that?"

"You've pretty near killed me."

Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to
that apology now, my friend."

With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I
didn't mean--I hadn't ought to have said----"

Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know
better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on
the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a
fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother.
It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But
when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."

For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not
leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story
would be kept secret.

"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they
would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover.
'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.

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