_ CHAPTER XII. THE ESCAPE
For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.
In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a trip hammer.
Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.
But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.
The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite on the other side of the road.
Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it behind her.
"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.
"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"
She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you tied?"
"Yes--hands and feet."
A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the door opened and a head was thrust in.
"What's the row, Tom?"
Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."
But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.
"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.
They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.
"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.
She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.
"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as not to arouse suspicion."
"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck.
"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."
With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.
She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.
"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. This moment she chose for her entrance.
"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the doorway.
"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.
"But--how?"
"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.
Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"
"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter."
Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought you kept him guarded."
"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.
"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.
"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers answered that the prisoner was safe so far.
"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. "Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found. Beats me how they got away so slick."
Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she had been told to do.
She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head quickly when she entered.
"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," he began.
"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."
"But what am I to do here?"
"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, the chances are they would have caught you again."
"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"
"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to escape the law that has been written?"
"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."
"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."
"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his old sneer.
She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."
"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the reapers."
He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended to block the way.
"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when the news comes."
"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his derisive smile.
"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little wildly.
"If you put it that way----"
"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."
"Just as you say."
"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all our lives are planned for your amusement."
"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."
"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance for you to get away."
"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.
"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."
"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a chance to prove them."
She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And with that she left him to himself.
Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.
The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to find her in the passage with a tray of food.
"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the tray on the table.
Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the passage and down the back stairs.
He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.
How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.
He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.
"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.
The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.
"It's Phil, isn't it?"
There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll explain," said Buck Weaver.
Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young mistress.
"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."
"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."
"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.
"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't know what I thought."
Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in everybody's business.
"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.
"I don't think. I saw him."
"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of gentle scorn.
"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."
"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go and see myself. You stay here."
She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."
"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl maintained obstinately.
"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."
Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to her to save the man in her room. _