"You fellows have got more energy than I have," he remarked. "This drive has sort of used me up. I'll stick around here."
Bowman and his companion moved toward the flap of the tent.
"Be sure to come back when you hear me pounding a piece of iron," the gold-brick man said. "I'll have a mighty fine chow."
Big Jim Grood turned to Bowman as they trudged out through the sand in the desert. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder, then lowered his voice.
"Why did you scrape the gold coating off of that brick?" he asked.
"Wanted to see what they'd do," Bowman remarked, chuckling.
"What they'll do," Grood said, "is plenty. They're going to kill us."
"Others have tried to kill us," Bowman reminded him, "and haven't got very far."
"We've never been up against a combination quite like this," Grood remarked thoughtfully. "These men have got brains. They've quite probably got other confederates that they're going to get in touch with. We'll be outnumbered four or five to one. We're out here in the middle of a wild, sandy desert that is admirably adapted for their purpose. They can dig two unmarked graves. We will simply be two more men who have disappeared after winning money at Agua Caliente. The details of the disappearance will never be known because we've been in their hands almost continuously since this thing started."
Bowman said thoughtfully, "We could make a detour, get to the automobile, try and reach the authorities from the nearest telephone."
Grood laughed, and there was no mirth in his laughter. "Not a chance on earth," he said. "Remember, these men are desperate. They're killers. They've got other murders on their consciences. They are planning future murders. They kill ruthlessly, giving no quarter."
Bowman's eyes were cold and hard as polished steel.
"Very well then," he said, "we'll give no quarter."
Without any conscious volition on their part, the pair were following an indistinct trail that led toward one of the huge granite walls.
Jim Grood stopped, sniffed the air.
"Cigar smoke," he said.
Cautiously, they started moving up-wind like two hunters stalking deer. They soon topped a little rise in the ground and looked down upon four men who were sprawled in the shade of the rocky wall, smoking and chatting.
At that moment there was the sound of a throbbing motor.
"Car coming," Bowman remarked.
Big Jim Grood gave him a significant glance.
Slowly, solemnly, as though it were some sacred ritual, the men took from the pockets of their coats the black masks with the white rings painted around the eyes. There was no need for conversation. Each knew that they were facing a showdown.
"Wait for the car," Bowman whispered.
There was a shrill, piercing whistle from the direction of the tent, a whistle twice repeated.
The effect upon the four men was magical. They jumped to their feet. The man who had been smoking a cigar tossed it away. A cigarette was ground beneath an impatient heel. The four men exchanged low words, then their hands slipped to holstered weapons, blued-steel glinted in the hot desert sunlight. Slowly, ominously, they started toward the tent.
Once more there came a whistled signal. One long and two short.
The men started to spread out.
The roaring motor of the approaching automobile could now be plainly distinguished.
Again came a whistle, sharp, shrill, menacing. This whistle sounded from a slightly different direction—much closer than the others.
"We're surrounded," Bowman said. "They're creeping up on us from behind."
The words had no sooner left his mouth than the hot desert air pulsated with the sharp crack of a weapon. A bullet whizzed past Bowman's ear, clipped a branch from a greasewood bush, and droned away like some angry hornet.
Bowman dropped to the ground. Big Jim Grood whirled and fired all in one motion.
A voice shouted from ahead of them, "Here they are, boys. Let's get 'em."
There was the sound of running steps.
Bowman raised to his knees.
"Hurt?" asked Grood.
"No, just getting down out of sight, but then we can't see anything either. Let's charge while we've got them separated."
"Let's go," the ex-cop said gleefully, his eyes lighting at the prospect of action.
Shoulder to shoulder, the two men topped a little rise, came crashing down through the sagebrush.
The four men had separated, then when they heard the sound of the shots, had concentrated on the point where the sounds indicated the location of their quarry. Now, as the two men came charging down through the crackling sage, they flung up guns and hastily fired.
There is something about overwhelming numbers which, in itself, is a handicap. Each man becomes careless, depending unconsciously upon his companions; it is like the hunter who shoots into a flock of ducks, trusting to the very numbers to eliminate the necessity of aiming.
Jax Bowman and his companion had schooled themselves by long practice to wage efficient warfare.
As the two masked men appeared in the open, they were greeted with a veritable fusillade of shots. Bullets whistled around them like hail stones pelting on a roof, and all of the bullets were wild.
There was something peculiar in the psychological reactions engendered by the black masks with the huge white rings around the eyes—a something which had a tendency to strike momentary terror. Moreover, whispers had been seeping through the underworld of these mysterious masked men who made war upon criminals, asking and giving no quarter.
"It's the White Rings!" shouted one of the men, and the words were still hot upon his lips when a bullet spun him half around. He flung up his hands, gave a sobbing gasp and pitched forward upon the hot sand.
Newspaper accounts which had, perhaps, been somewhat exaggerated, claimed that these mysterious masked men never missed a shot; that they had trained themselves to shoot rapidly and with uncanny accuracy.
The two men, their faces expressionless because of the black masks with the weird white rings about the eyes, fired with unhurried efficiency. Two more men pitched to the sand, quivered and lay still. The last of the party started to run.
As well have thought to run from an oncoming avalanche, as from this strange pair who had pledged themselves to a grim warfare upon crime, asked no quarter and gave no quarter.
Big Jim Grood's gun spoke once.
Grood turned to his companion.
Slowly he removed his mask.
"We gave them," he said, "all of the odds."
Jax Bowman's mask remained in place.
"You forget," he said, "that we have another chore."
He pointed with his gun toward the place where the fake prospector maintained his tent.
Big Jim Grood thrust extra shells into the magazine clip of his automatic.
"Some one's coming," he said.
There was the sound of light, quick feet.
"A woman," said Grood.
Jax Bowman whisked off his mask, slipped the weapon into its holster a scant half second before Evelyn Brokay swung around a clump of greasewood, running with head down, elbows close to her sides, a nickel-plated revolver in her right hand.
Bowman's face was stern.
"Stop," he said.
She snapped her eyes to his. Instant relief flooded her face, tears were streaming from the eyes.
"Thank God," she said, "that you're safe! I never knew before."
"Never knew what?" asked Big Jim Grood, in the solemn voice of a judge pronouncing a death sentence.
"What happened to the men that I contacted for them," she said. "I knew it was some form of swindle. I wasn't foolish enough to think that they didn't have some ulterior motive, but I thought it was a gambling game and that I was getting victims for that. It was only after I reached San Francisco that I found out."
"Found out what?" Bowman inquired.