That night she bucked the roulette wheel and won about three hundred. The next day she met Pedro Gallivan. The next evening she and Walter were “visiting” at the Gallivan hacienda.
By that time I’d developed a fat Mexican cook to give me the lowdown on Pedro. She was working daytimes at the hacienda. She spent the nights with her family. It took lots of dinero to bribe her to cough up such information as she picked up, but she had a good memory.
She told me about the blonde and Walter.
The Westing girl, it seemed, was playing Pedro and Walter, one against the other. Walter didn’t want to stay out there, and he was sore. The girl had a talk with him about lots of things, and they stayed.
I pumped the Mex to find out if Pedro was riding.
She didn’t know. She only knew that Pedro was looking at the gringo girl with melting eyes and making protestations of affection.
I asked her where Walter had been.
She said Walter had been sent on an errand.
I thought over that being sent on an errand business. It didn’t sound so good. I looked around for Phil. He wasn’t in town. I lost ten dollars making fool bets on roulette and went to bed.
About two o’clock I heard shots and tumbled to the floor, reaching for my boots with one hand and my cartridge belt with the other.
There was the clatter of horses coming at a breakneck pace, and there was the tattoo of pistol shots, the rattle of rifle fire, and something dropped to the ground with a thud that jarred the pictures on my wall.
The rurales were there about the time I was.
The dead man was Walter Hedley.
The rurales told of a boldly planned holdup to clean out the cash that was held over in the casino. It was one of those wildly foolish affairs that seemed to be foredoomed to failure, but it had almost worked. A chance alarm had brought the rurales. Maybe that alarm hadn’t been so much of a chance after all.
Walter Hedley was pretty well riddled with lead. There was a look of puzzled bewilderment on his face. The rurales must have been shooting exceptionally well that night. Or maybe they’d had a little help.
The posse swept on after the rest of the gang. They came back inside of half an hour. The Mexes had one dead bandit, and a fall guy is all they look for. The robbery hadn’t been a success, the “ringleader” was dead, what more could one ask for?
They consumed much tequila, and assumed a great deal of credit for straight shooting.
Pedro had a perfect alibi. I investigated it.
The little Mex gambler that had been taking the dope into the Phillips prospect, the one Phil Ryan had shot in the wrist, didn’t have any alibi. But you can’t hang anything on a man just because he hasn’t an alibi.
The blond girl wept vigorously over her “fallen hero.” The Desert Queen took the news in silence. After that she sat for a long while, looking at the horizon with unmoist eyes.
Two nights later my spy tipped me off that Pedro was riding, and she had heard some mention of bars of gold.
Another shipment was due from the Dry Canteen Mine, and I got in touch with Phil and asked him if he wanted to ride, just for old times’ sake.
I didn’t like the expression on his face when he said he did.
“Don’t try to ride into no bullets, son, and get killed on the field of duty,” I ventured to suggest.
He snorted. “Nobody’d care if I did.”
“That’s a coward’s game,” I said shortly.
“I ain’t a coward.”
“Don’t think coward thoughts, then, and you won’t get to be one.”
I had to let it go at that.
We lay in wait where we could see the corral back of Pedro’s hacienda. We moved in after dark, and there was a wind blowing, a wind that whipped the fine silt in little whirlwinds, sent them dancing off over the face of the desert.
About midnight we saw shadowy figures about the corral. Horses got saddled. Then we could hear riders.
“No fall guys this time,” muttered Phil.
I grunted assent. We were between the riders and the hacienda, and we intended to keep between them.
It was tough work, trailing the party ahead, yet keeping out of sight and hearing. There was a moon, and the little band rode fast.
They took a short-cut trail. I hadn’t known of it before. Once I thought we had lost sight of them. The wind was bad up along the ridges, and there was a cloud scud forming over the moon.
But we caught up to them in a box cañon below, almost ran onto them before we knew it. They’d evidently stopped for a palaver. We trailed them easy from there until they staked out their broncs in a clump of trees just below a spring.
The men climbed up a ridge and settled themselves. It was getting gray dawn now, and Phil and I had to work pretty carefully to keep from being discovered.
There were six horses in the party. Two of ’em were packhorses with empty alforjas — empty saddle bags. The other four were prime saddle stock.
Below the ridge ran the automobile road.
“S’pose they’re going to tackle the armed cars?”
Phil shrugged his shoulders.
We waited. It was all there was to do.
An automobile showed up. Behind it came another. The tops were down, men sat in the cars, and the men had rifles. The top of the ridge spouted fire.
One of the cars swerved drunkenly.
The driver of the other car ran it to a stop, turned, and spoke to the men with him.
The crackle of rifles still sounded on the ridge.
We could see it all, then. Pedro had bought over some of the guards. They were throwing in with him. I glanced at Phil.
He nodded.
I took a fine sight at a huddled figure and cut loose. Phil’s gun roared in my ear. That cross fire smoked ’em out. They tried to get us, but we were well covered, and we had lots of time. They were fighting against time.
The guards below came to life and began to do some shooting. Pedro’s gang started for their broncs. So we made for ours.
I could hear the sweep of hoofs ahead of me and the sound of shooting. Phil was riding stirrup to stirrup with me and we were holding our fire until we could see something to shoot at.
The sun was just making thin purple lines of reddish color along the tops of the ridges. The wind was blowing and it was cold. We were between the riders and the hacienda.
“You double back and keep ’em from getting to the hacienda. I can haze ’em along the trail,” yelled Phil.
I didn’t like the idea, but he pointed out, “It’s our best chance. We can’t catch ’em, and they’ll double around on a secret trail somewhere. They know the mountains.”
Phil sounded right, so I swung back.
They did just what he’d predicted, took a cut-off trail, and swung back into the hacienda trail. I was there waiting for ’em. Phil was behind ’em.
They dropped behind boulders and got real deadly.
They were fighting for their lives and knew it, this time. And the time element didn’t bother ’em so much now. They were four against two.
We had ’em pocketed, and they had us boxed. It was a question of making every shot count and waiting for developments. I built a little fire behind a rock and sent up a smoke signal. The fight got warmer after that.
But the bandits couldn’t get out. The wind did things to my smoke signal, but I figured there’d be keen eyes searching the trails.
The rurales rode up in an hour.
They called on the little group to surrender. The bandits just laughed and started to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The Mexican government ain’t gentle with bandits. When they get trapped, they might as well see it through.