Clumsily scrawled in pencil on the soiled scrap were the words : 'One more offense an' you dekorate a tree.
SATAN.'
Sudden laughed as he read it. 'I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry, Sam,' he advised. 'Why, yu numskull, don't yu reckon Jeff Keith can write an' spell better'n that?'
The negro's gloomy features lightened. 'Yo're sho'ly right, ser,' he agreed. 'Dis niggeh got no savvy. Massa Jeff he done went to college.'
'It's friend Scar, o' course, tryin' to frighten yu. Lemme have the message, an' next time I meet the gent I'll make him eat it.'
He pocketed the warning and casually mentioning that he was bound for Red Rock, departed. Climbing the long slope to Hell City, an idea occurred to him which brought a mischievous grin to his hard face. The custodian of the gate opened without question or comment, though it was not the man he had seen before. Evidently he was expected. The bandit chief received him without any sign of surprise and his first remark told that Turvey's time had not been entirely devoted to night-herding.
'Aren't you rather wide of the route to Red Rock?' Sudden affected astonishment he did not feel. 'Yu are well served,' he said.
'As a man should be who serves himself,' was the reply. 'Did the girl ask you to be silent?'
'It was a good guess.'
The masked man grimaced. 'Well, call it that. Now I'll tell you another thing--you never had any intention of visiting Red Rock.'
'Me bein' here, it shore looks thataway,' the puncher countered. 'Mebbe yu know about this too.' He produced the scrap of paper and told where he had obtained it. 'Not quite yore style, I'd say, threatin' an old darkie who musta been pretty good to yu as a kid,' he added sarcastically.
The effect was volcanic. Through shut lips the bandit barked an order which sent Silver scuttering. His master paced to and fro, his fists bunched till the knuckle-bones showed white beneath the skin, obviously seething with anger. In a few minutes the dwarf returned, with Roden slouching behind. With a furious gesture, Satan flung the paper at his feet.
'What's the meaning of that?' he snarled.
The man picked it up. 'I dunno ' he began, and stopped as he saw the gun levelled at his breast.
'One lie and you'll never speak again.'
The rascal did not doubt it. In those pale eyes shone a lust to take his life, and he knew that the finger on the trigger was itching to press it. His tanned skin turned to a sickly yellow.
'Aw, Chief, I didn't mean no harm,' he muttered. 'The nigger's bin gittin' uppity--you know what he done to some of us a bit back, an' I wanted to give him a bad moment, that's all.'
'All? You dared to act without permission, and use my name? One more break like that, you damned dog, and I'll feed you to the buzzards. Get out, and remember, that warning now applies to you.'
Only when the fellow had crept, utterly cowed, from the room did Satan replace his revolver and turn again to his visitor. The storm had passed.
'I am obliged to you,' he said. 'These brutes must learn that there is only one head.'
'Would you have shot him?' the cowboy asked curiously. 'Certainly, and he knew it,' the bandit replied, and with a cold smile, '' You dont believe that. Well, I have another case to deal with--a worse one. You shall see.'
He nodded to his satellite, who went and opened the door. Two men entered, gripping the arms of a third; behind them came some half-dozen others. Ragged, ill-favoured fellows, all of them, who found in the lawless West a haven where they might keep their freedom.
The prisoner was a half-breed, with more Mexican than Indian blood in him the cowboy conjectured, for he displayed none of the red man's stoicism in misfortune, and his spare frame shook as with an ague when his guards halted him in front of the masked judge. The poor wretch did not know that by his own cowardice he was condemning himself. Satan wasted no time.
'In the Big Bend affair you were one of the men who entered and cleaned up the bank?'
'Si, senor,' was the reply, almost in a whisper.
'And you kept back five hundred dollars in gold, thereby adding to your share and lessening ours,' the cold voice continued.
The man's lips writhed. 'Sefior, eet ees a meestak,' he cried. 'Dere was one beeg haste--I no theenk--'
'That I would find out,' the other concluded. 'Fool ! All that happens is revealed to me by powers you could not comprehend. Listen: you gave one of the gold pieces to your woman, Anita; the others are buried beneath your blankets. You see, I know all. You have broken your oath to me, and robbed your comrades. The penalty for either is--death.'
The accused tried to speak but his trembling lips were incapable of forming words. Save for the support of the two who held him he would have fallen to the floor. His judge contemplated him with contempt.
'I shall be merciful,' he said, 'but you must be punished.'
He paused, and the cowboy saw a gleam of hope in the dark, fearful eyes. 'You will receive--fifty lashes.'
The gleam died instantly and stark terror took its place.
Speech came again in a shrill cry: 'Not the wheep, senor; keel me, but not the wheep.' He would have dropped on his knees but the guards rudely jerked him upright, and at a sign from their master, dragged him away, still mouthing wild, incoherent entreaties.
Satan motioned to his servant. 'See to it, and let me know when all is ready,' he said, and to Sudden, 'Well, what do you think?'
'It will kill him.'
'Of course, but it will save me from slaying others for the same offence,' was the callous reply. 'That is civilization's excuse for hanging a murderer--he dies that the rest may live, so even this contemptible coward will have served the community.' From without, the muffled, brazen voice of a bell came to them. 'Have you ever seen a man thrashed, Sudden? Come, it is an interesting sight.'
Little as he wished to witness such a spectacle, the puncher could not refuse. A deed of violence was no new thing to him, and in the course of his adventurous career he had encountered men who, spurred on by greed or revenge, would commit any crime in the calendar, but never had he met the like of the inhuman devil at his side. Throughout the mock trial he sensed that the Red Mask was revelling in his power to hurt, and his so-called promise of mercy was no more than calculated cruelty to a culprit already doomed.
They stepped out into the sunlight to find a curious scene awaiting them. At a point where the street widened, stood a stout post, and beside it, fixed to the cliff, a big bell. Sudden had noticed them earlier but without suspecting their sinister purpose. Tied to the post, stripped to the waist, his bound wrists- high above his head, was the half-breed, and by hisale a burly fellow holding a short-handled whip of plaited rawhide, the tapering end of which was knotted at intervals. Ringed round the pair were some two-score onlookers, summoned by the sonorous notes of the bell. Mostly men, their coarse, cruel faces were alight with anticipation. They were about to be entertained, and Sudden, seeking for some sign of sympathy, remembered that the condemned had endeavoured to rob these people; there could be no compassion from them.
The excited chattering ceased and the circle opened as the Red Mask and his companion appeared. A little behind where they stood the cowboy could hear two men muttering. 'Five dollars he don't stand twenty-five strokes.'
'Yo're on; Pedro is tougher than he 'pears.'
'But he got the gal Muley wanted an' that hombre ain't the forgettin' sort. Look at him.'
The man with the whip was drawing the lash almost caressingly through his fingers, with a gloating expression which only too plainly betrayed eagerness to begin his ghoulish task. Sudden's remonstrance brought only a sneer to the Chief's thin lips.
'I picked him for that reason,' he said coldly. 'I shall get good service.'
He was about to give the awaited signal when, from behind a group of spectators, a woman rushed forward and flung herself at his feet. Not yet thirty, she had a bold kind of beauty, but now her face had the pallor of death, the cheeks sunken, the eyes filled with bitter anguish.
'Spare him,' she pleaded. 'He did not want the gold--he took it for me, because I taunted him with his
