her voice. 'I must save you. Promise you will take me away--we can trick or overcome that wretch out there, get the horses, and ride out of this dreadful country into the wide world--together.' She stepped closer and the flickering flame of the lantern revealed her parted, pleading lips and eager eyes. The cowboy felt the fascination of her and fought it. Deliberately he evaded the issue.
'Speakin' o' hosses, I gotta thank yu for savin' Nigger,' he said. 'If things don't go just right with me, I'd admire for yu to have him.' She caught her breath. 'Yes, yes, but things must go right,' she whispered. 'I have my knife--the same one, Jim--and we'll slip off and--live happily ever after,' she finished with a tremulous smile.
Was she in earnest? He believed that for the moment she might be. But neither her beauty nor her warmth awakened any response in his breast, and he was not the kind to save his life with a lie.
'It wouldn't work out thataway,' he said gently. 'I'm a wanderer without a home--gotta be--an' yo're not made for poverty.'
'You are thinking of those men. I'll help you find them, and Jim, I don't care for money.' Swiftly she put her arms round his neck and clung to him. 'Boy, boy, I only want you,' she murmured. 'Even if I'm only to be your slave, your plaything ...' She stopped as she looked up into his set face.
'Yo're talkin' wild an' I know yu don't mean it,' he said sternly. 'If ever I care for a woman, I'll not ask that of her.' She shrank away as though he had struck her. 'You--don't --love me?' she asked, and her voice had lost its softness.
Sudden shook his head. 'Yo're mighty beautiful, but ..'
'You would rather lose your life than share it with me,' she finished furiously. 'Very well; die, and be damned, you fool.' She almost ran from the shack and slammed the door. He heard her give a curt order to Fagan, who came in and inspected his bonds. Then silence. The cowboy breathed a sigh of relief.
'Wild Bill shorely gave me good advice,' he muttered. 'Wonder how much she was meanin'?' He smiled grimly. 'Her husband won't find married life monotonous, I'm think-in'. Guess I'd better be going; Paul may decide there's no need to wait.' He worked on the fastening round his wrists and presently slipped it off. Then he picked up the lantern--which had been left--and examined the back of his prison. At the moment when the crunching tread of Fagan's feet sounded farthest away, he drove his heel at what appeared to be a weak spot. The log splintered and broke, fortunately with no great noise, and another thrust produced a gap through which he could squeeze. Stooping low, he crawled along the side of the ravine, moving swiftly but soundlessly from one patch of shadow tothe next. He was stepping from behind a bush almost on the verge of the camp when a bulky figure butted into him. Instantly he had it by the throat, and the surprise of the attack brought the fellow down.
'A yelp from yu'Il be yore last,' Sudden whispered fiercely, and drove the warning home by digging fingers of steel into his victim's windpipe. Finding there was no resistance, he relaxed his grip a little. 'Yu can name yoreself,' he said, 'But --whisper.' The half-throttled man was in poor shape to do more. 'I'm Miller,' he gasped. 'Was comin' to--turn you loose. Got yore guns--in my belt.' Sudden was not in a trustful mood. With one hand he searched for and found his weapons; not until then did he remove his knees from the prostrate miner's chest and allow him to get up. Husky rubbed his throbbing throat.
'You got one hell of a grip, Green,' he said, and, realizing that some sort of an explanation was due, went on, 'I don't like thisyer crowd--never did, an' when you told of Hank's little game it finished me--I lost a good pal that way. So I figured I'd help you slide out an' go along, if you'll have me.'
'Shorely,' Sudden replied. 'Sorry I rough-housed yu but I couldn't take a risk. Any idea where my hoss is?'
'Clear o' camp with mine,' Miller told him. 'I tried to saddle both of 'em, but your'n nearly took the head off'n my shoulders. He's a beauty though. I don't savvy horses much, but I'd sooner trust a good 'un than most o' the men I've met, an' when Lesurge ordered him to be shot, I got his measure.' If Husky meant to ingratiate himself with the cowboy he could have chosen no better way, but he was sincere, and Sudden--a competent judge of men despite his youth--knew it. The miner's creed was a simple one; if he believed a man deserved to die he would kill without compunction, but he would not lie, steal, or betray a friend.
Through the velvet blackness of the night they made their way to where the horses were picketed. Nigger greeted his master with a low whinny of pleasure, and a few moments later they were lost in the gloom of the brush. Husky asked a question.
'I've got friends handy,' was the answer.
'I'm durn glad to hear it,' the miner said. 'I clean forgot 'bout grub. Gosh, I'd like to see them fellers's faces in the mornin'.'
CHAPTER XXI
When Lora left the shack she was frantic with the rage and shame of a slighted woman, but by the time she reached the camp her virulent passion had passed, leaving only a dull despair. Paul was sitting alone by the fire. He waited for her to speak.
'That man is made of chilled steel,' she said.
'The coldest steel will yield to sufficient heat,' was his comment.
'How wonderful,' she sneered. 'I threw my arms round his neck and offered him life and my love. He-- refused.' Paul glared at her. 'You did--that?' he cried.
'Certainly. You see to what lengths I go in your service.'
'Are you sure it was on my account?'
'At one moment I was not,' she confessed coolly. 'But now I am--quite sure.'
'Since he won't toe the line, he must die. When people cease to be of use to me, I get rid of them.'
'Is that a hint?' she asked caustically.
'Possibly,' he snapped. 'Don't overplay your hand, Lora.'
'Because if it is, I'd better prove I can still be useful,' she went on. 'Silencing Green won't help you; it would be more to the purpose if he led you to the mine.' His gesture of impatience amused her. 'Every prisoner dreams of escape. Where would Green go if he got away? To the mine, of course, where Mason--who would not come with us, though they are inseparable--is doubtless awaiting him.' Paul's eyes gleamed. 'By God, you're right; let him go and set hounds on his trail. I might have thought of that.'
'Your mind is so fully occupied, my dear Paul,' she said.
If he detected the sarcasm he ignored it. 'Your story to Green is that I'm determined to kill him but you cannot bear it. Cut his bonds and tell him you've got Fagan out of the way. I'll have three men ready to follow him, and I'll take damned good care he doesn't get his own horse.' He hurried away to do his part and the woman retraced her steps to the shack. The savage resentment towards the condemned man had gone and she was now doing what she could to save him. Once clear of the camp, she argued, it should be simple for a trained woodsman who knew he was being pursued, to trick men unused to following a trail. Outside the shack the stocky form of Fagan confronted her.
'Back again huh?' he jeered. 'Thought you'd wished him good-bye a'ready.'
'Open the door, and shut your foul mouth,' she said.
The man obeyed and started back with an oath. 'Hell's flames, he's gone!'
'Impossible!' she cried.
Thrusting him aside, she looked in. The lantern was there, still alight, but no prisoner; the hole in the wall at the back explained why. Her first feeling was one of elation--he had escaped, and then came a black thought--help had come from another. And, knowing it would, he had rejected her advances, no doubt laughing to himself, despising her ... Paul's harsh voice, speaking to Fagan, recalled her to reason.
'Escaped? How, you dolt?'
'Ask her,' the man replied, pointing to Lora. 'She's the only one what's been near him. She must 'a' cut ' The woman whirled on him. 'What did I tell you to do when I came out?'
'Done forgot that,' Fagan stammered. 'You said to make shore he was tied tight, an' I did.' He darted into the shack, picked up the rope, and stared at it. 'Ain't cut a-tall,' he cried 'an' the knots is just how we fixed 'em.'
'Then you fixed them damned carelessly,' Lesurge told him. Hank came running up. 'Husky's hoss an' the black is missin',' he announced. 'Mebbe the miner--'
'Talk sense,' Paul interjected. 'Miller would have used a knife and that hole has been made from the inside.' A desire to vent his anger possessed him. 'He's beaten the lot of you,' he said, with a scathing look at his followers. 'If I had six such men instead of you weaklings I'd conquer the world.' The taunt penetrated even their
