“Yes,” the Adjutant-General agreed. He was commander of that crack constabulary, the Texas Rangers, the personification of the ideals of that brigade. Big and gaunt he was; you knew at a glance, the sort of an official who would, if needs be, climb into the saddle himself and take the trail.
“The woman,” the Governor went on, “is well connected. We cannot, in any event, let up in the search.”
“But, sir,” mildly demurred the Adjutant-General, “we are trying. I feel,” he went on, “somewhat responsible in a personal sense. I insisted Captain Frost take her across.”
“No,” Frost said quickly; “the fault was mine.”
“Well,” the Governor declared, “whose fault it was is beside the point. We have got to do something at once.”
“They’re a tough lot,” Frost mused. He spread his hands on the desk. He was, for obvious reasons, highly uncomfortable. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I agree that we are being made to look bad. But what else can we do?”
“It has been my experience,” said the Adjutant-General, “that this gang never strikes blindly. There always is a motive back of every crime. What was it in this case? Why did they kidnap Helen Stevens? Revenge? Hardly. Ransom?” He shook his head. “No—something else. Some reason we don’t know yet.”
Frost nodded. “If I had the slightest idea where she was,” he said, “I’d go get her—no matter where that happened to be.”
Silence.
Then the Governor said, “Perhaps we ought to ask for a bigger appropriation for the Ranger force. Increase them. Move some of them south.” He looked sagacious. “The only bad feature about movement like that is the publicity. Our opponents always construe that as inefficiency. It gives them something to talk about. I dislike having this case noised around.”
“Well,” Frost said bluntly, “the only way to keep it in the family is to let me have a crack at it alone.”
Then the unbelievable happened. The immense, carved door swung open noiselessly, and the Governor’s secretary entered.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he addressed the Great Man, “but I’ve a message for Captain Frost.”
“For me?” Frost asked.
“Yes, sir—forwarded from Gentry.”
The Governor said: “Come in, Leavell, come in.”
The secretary walked to Captain Frost and handed him the message. Frost made no move to open it until the secretary had departed.
“May I—”
“Certainly,” said the Governor.
A deep silence fell. Frost read the message without even a blink of the eye and passed it over the desk to the Governor.
He put on his glasses and read aloud:
COAST GUARD CUTTER FORTY-NINE SIGHTED RUM-RUNNER CATHERINE B LONGITUDE NINETY-SEVEN EAST LATITUDE TWENTY-SEVEN NEAR BROWNSVILLE WITH WOMAN ABOARD ANSWERING DESCRIPTION STEVENS STOP CUTTER OUTDISTANCED STOP RUM BOAT ONE OF FORMER AL THOMAS FLEET.
The Governor removed his glasses and tapped them against his chin again. The Adjutant-General looked at Frost. Frost looked out the window.
“I sort of thought so,” he soliloquized.
“Al Thomas,” mused the Governor. “Who is that?”
“A gunman killed in a plane smash a couple of months ago after a dogfight with Hell’s Stepsons,” Frost replied. “His men seem to be carrying on.”
“ ‘Cutter outdistanced,’ “ the Governor went on. “I wonder how—”
“Please, sir,” Frost put in. He was on his feet now. Hours of inactivity, of recrimination, of criticism, rushed to a climax which crystallized his attitude. “Please, sir—I’d like to play this alone. Single-handed. It started mine and—” his voice was grim— ”I’d like it to finish the same way. I don’t want any help.”
“But, Captain—” he began.
“Of course, Jerry,” said the Adjutant-General in a placating voice. “You can’t go streaking off like this!”
Frost raised his hand. His face was in a cast of resolve. “Please,” he said again, firmly. He looked at the Adjutant-General and the Adjutant-General understood. “I’ve got to go it alone.”
The Governor nodded; Frost saluted and went out.
As the door closed the Adjutant-General smiled and offered an observation to his chief. “I’d hate like hell to have him after me.”
Coast Guard Cutter Forty-Nine’s base was at Corpus Christi, and it was towards there that Frost turned when he hopped off from Austin. He was at Cuero in fifty minutes, stopping only long enough to wire Jimmy O’Neill that he was on his way and to notify Hans Traub he again was temporarily in command of the Air Rangers.
“I’m riding alone on the Stevens case,” he telegraphed.
Two hours and fifty minutes after he had circled the dome of the state capitol, he dipped into the airport at Corpus Christi and taxied his battle plane into a hangar. He got O’Neill on the phone at the government docks.
“Coming right over, Jimmy.”
“Great,” said O’Neill. “Ox Clay is here. You’ll like him.”
Frost did like Ox Clay. That name ought to awaken memories of sporting page devotees because Ox Clay was pretty well known back in ‘21 and ‘22 when he was ripping football lines to shreds for the Middies: little, square-jawed, built like a bullet, and innumerable laugh wrinkles around his eyes. “Hello, Jerry,” he greeted the flyer. “I’ve heard so damn much about you I feel as if we’re old friends.”
“You’re no stranger yourself.” Frost returned. He said to O’Neilclass="underline" “Well, Jimmy, I’ve just left one of those high and mighty conferences. Believe you me, Missus Frost’s young son has got to do something and do it pronto. “What’s it all about?”
“Ox can tell you more than I can, Jerry. He was riding Forty-Nine himself.”
“I’ll say I was,” Clay retorted with a grimace. “And the way that baby slipped away from Forty-Nine was nobody’s business. We took a couple of shots—it wasn’t good target practice. We only scared her faster.”
“What about the woman?”
“I was getting to that. It’s that Stevens skirt—no two ways about it. They let us get pretty close—and then kidded us by pulling away. But nobody can tell me I didn’t see her during those first few minutes—brown suit, brown hair—”
“Right!” said Frost. “Sounds like my little playmate. What about the boat?”
“Well, she used to belong to the Singleton outfit. Name’s the Catherine B. Lately taken over by Thomas, and then his gang got it when you fellows rubbed him out. She’s the prize of the Gulf, can store about three thousand cases and make close to forty knots. We’ve never got her because she’s fast and then there are hundreds of little coves along the coast she ducks in when trouble appears. When we saw her she was heading to sea.”
“We’ve got plenty of dope on that outfit,” O’Neill said. “But so far it hasn’t done us any good. We know they load on the stuff at Tampico, Vera Cruz and God knows where else—and about a hundred miles out they transfer it to the launches.”
“I see,” Frost said. “The launches don’t dare get out farther than that?”
“Exactly,” Clay put in. “They work close to the Mexican side. There must be five hundred coves between here and the Laguna de la Madre.”
“If we could grab the Catherine B,” O’Neill said; “we’d stop a lot of the smuggling. What’s your idea about this, Jerry?”
“Well, I’m going to have a look for her,” Frost said quietly.
They thought he was kidding.
“Bring your bathing suit?” Clay asked.
“I’m serious,” Frost said.
“Really?” Incredulously.