Alexander obeyed--and drew out a parcel bound in brown paper, bearing the bright red spots of the bank's sealing wax.

"I reckon, men," she said quietly, "we won't hev ter sot out afresh."

Brent, Halloway and O'Keefe gazed stupidly each on each. Incredulous amazement and perplexity tied their tongues. Finally Halloway found his voice to stammer, "What's done happened? How did Sellers git hit."

Then only Alexander threw back her head and let her laughter peal out.

"He's done hed hit all ther time," she announced. "You fellers hes done been staunch friends ter me--and I've got ter crave yore forgiveness ef I hain't trusted ye full free from then start." She paused and added solicitously, "But ye sees, ye forewarned me erginst them real robbers--an' Jase Mallows forewarned me erginst _you_. I 'lowed he war lyin'--but I couldn't take no chances. Thar war jest one feller I knowed I could trust without question, an' thet feller was Bud. So he tuck ther money an' thet bundle I rid away from bank with was jest make believe. I aimed ter lead 'em over a false trail."

"Outwitted ther pack of us," bellowed Halloway gleefully. "Afore G.o.d, I takes my hat off ter ye--but why didn't ye suffer some man ter tote ther dummy bundle?"

"Ef airy man had undertook hit," she responded gravely, "they'd most likely hev kilt him first--an' s'arched him 'atterwards."

Bud had dropped down on a step of the stile that led from the road to the yard. His heavy lidded eyes were full of weariness and pain. His limp arm sagged but he said slowly:

"Thet's why I run away, Mr. Brent. I had to. Two of us couldn't cross thar without goin' slow--and I couldn't let them saddle-bags git lost."

"So ye couldn't be quite sure who you could trust," repeated Halloway.

"I hopes ye knows now."

But Brent, watching the light in the great fellow's eyes did not miss their hungry gleam and in a low voice he said, "Jack, _I'm_ not sure yet."

CHAPTER XIII

The conspiracy fathered by Lute Brown and Jase Mallows had its inception in a small coterie whose ambitions had been stirred to avarice by the bait of sharing among them a sum of over four thousand dollars. Ramifications of detail had necessitated the use of a larger force; a force so large, indeed, that anything like an equal distribution of booty would have intolerably eaten into the profits of the princ.i.p.als. Therefore the rank and file of employes were merely mercenaries, working for a flat wage.

But in such an enterprise the danger of mutiny always looms large and the bludgeon of blackmail lies ready to the hand of the mutineer.

Therefore the actual handling of the money had been a matter of extreme care to Lute and those in his closest confidence. When the leader had taken most of his men out of the mine he had led away those of whom he had felt least sure--and had left the saddle-bags to the custody of the supposedly reliable minority. His estimate had been seventy-five per cent accurate. One only of the four was untrustworthy.

Lute himself had designated the custodian of the treasure and had fixed a rendezvous at a long abandoned and decaying cabin in a remote and thicketed locality. Shortly before dawn Lute arrived there, unaccompanied and expecting to find his man awaiting him. But complications had developed. When the quartette that left the mine last held a hurried conference outside, the squad leader explained that the very essence of precaution now lay in their separating and seeking individual cover.

Two of them concurred but the fellow who had attacked Alexander had become insurgent through drink, chagrin and cupidity.

"Boys," he darkly suggested, "we warn't hired ter go thro no sich rough times es we've done encountered. I reckon these fellers owes us right smart more then what they agreed ter pay fust oft--moreover what sartainty hev we got thet we're goin' ter get anything a-tall?"

They argued with him but his obduracy stood unaffected.

"Thet small sheer thet I agreed ter tek hain't ergoin' ter satisfy me now," he truculently protested. "I aims ter go along with ther money hitself and git paid off without no sort of dalliance. I aims ter get my own price, too."

Finally, since they could not overlook the menace of disaffection, the leader agreed to take this man with him to Lute Brown for adjustment of the dispute, and the two set off together, while the other two left them at a fork of the trail. On the way to the cabin, the disgruntled one drank more moonshine liquor than was good for him and when they arrived there the place was seemingly empty, for Lute, watching with hawk-like vigilance, had made out that instead of one man two were approaching and he had slipped out through a back door into the void of the darkness. A lantern without a chimney burned in the deserted room and cabin and that was safe enough in a place so screened, but it showed the two newcomers that there was no one waiting there. To the inflamed and suspicious brother this seemed an indication of broken faith. Perhaps after all he had been lured here to be paid off with treachery and murder!

"So ye lied ter me!" he bellowed in pa.s.sion. "Hit war jest like I thought. Now I aims ter tek hit all myself!" And s.n.a.t.c.hing out a knife he hurled himself on his comrade of an hour ago.

That one dropped the saddle-bags and fumbled for his pistol, but before it cleared the holster they had grappled and were stumbling about the room. Lute, watching from without, considered this the moment for intervention and he appeared in the door with drawn revolver shouting out for an end to the struggle.

Unfortunately it was only his loyal adherent who heeded his voice, and the other, freed from the grip that had so far held him in chancery stabbed twice before the object of his attack collapsed. Then only, Lute fired. Before that moment he must have fired through his loyal man to reach his traitor. The hesitation was fatal, for the shot missed its target and in a moment more, Lute, too fell under the knife.

The traitorous survivor stood for a moment, panting heavily, then, still unsteady of step from his homicidal exertions, picked up the saddle-bags, ransacked them with frenzied haste and plunged out of the door with the package that bore the spots of red sealing wax.

At any time the others might come to investigate and they would find a scene of double murder.

He did not stop to open the package. That could await a more opportune moment. Just now the vital thing was flight.

When, at the end of much panic-stricken haste and the spurring of terror he judged it safe to strike a match, he ripped open the bundle, over which so many men and one woman had fought--and in it discovered only tightly packed newspapers and a few small pieces of broken brick--added to give it the plausibility of weight.

Halloway in accordance with his plan of leaving the stage before his presence lost dramatic effect, did not offer to go all the way back to Shoulder-blade Creek with Alexander. He accompanied her only to a point where there was no longer danger, and then said farewell to her, leaving her still under the escort of Brent, Bud Sellers and O'Keefe.

"I reckon," he announced abruptly when they stood on the crest of a steep hill, "I'll turn back hyar. I don't dwell over yore way an' thar hain't no use fer me ter fare further. I'll bid ye farewell--an' mebby some day all us fellers'll meet up again."

Alexander was surprised, and a sharp little pang of disappointment shot through her breast. She did not a.n.a.lyze the emotion, but, just then and with no reason that emerged out of the subconscious, she remembered the instant when she had hung to the sycamore branch and he had swept her in and pressed her close. She only nodded her head and spoke gravely. "I reckon we'll all miss ye when ye're gone, but thet hain't no reason fer takin' ye no further offen yore course."

Then for the first time Halloway said anything that might have been construed as a compliment to the girl and he disarmed it of too great significance with a quizzical smile.

"I reckon, Alexander, thar hain't nothin' better then a good man--an'

ye've done proved yoreself one--but afore G.o.d thar's a mighty outstandin' woman wasted when ye does. .h.i.t."

Alexander flushed. Perhaps the germ of the awakening that Halloway had predicted was already stirring into unrecognized life, but she was ashamed of the blush and in order to cover it made a retort which was not by any stretch of the imagination a compliment.

"Thar's gals aplenty, Jack"--the people of the hills fall very naturally into the use of the first name--"A feller like you mout find hisself one ef he tried hard enough--an' I'll give ye some mighty good counsel, because atter all I was _borned_ female an' I knows thet much erbout 'em."

"Wa'al?" Halloway smiled inquiringly, and the girl went on.

"Ye won't nuver make no headway with none of 'em whilst ye goes round lookin' es bristly an' es dirty es a razor-back hog thet's done been wallowin' in ther mire. Ef ye ever got clean once hit mout be right diff'rent."

The big fellow roared with laughter as he turned to Brent.

"Kin ye beat thet now, Mr. Brent? Kin ye figger me in a b'iled shirt, with a citified shave an' perfume on me a-settin' out sparkin'."

None of the rest knew why Brent laughed so hard. He was trying to picture the expression that would have come to Alexander's face had she seen Jack Halloway as he himself had seen him, groomed to perfection, with pretty heads turning in theater foyer and at restaurant tables, to gaze at his clean chisseled features and G.o.d-like physique.

Bud had little to say and after the parting the girl traveled in a greater silence than before. Both were thinking of the time, now drawing near, when they should reach the house of Aaron McGivins and learn whether or not it was a house of death. Both too were thinking of the man who had turned back, but their thoughts there were widely different.

Then they came to the road that ran by the big house, and before they had reached it Joe McGivins, who sighted them from afar came to meet them. When Alexander saw her brother she found suddenly that she could not walk. She halted and stood there with her knees weak under her and her cheeks pallid. The moment of hearing the life-and-death verdict was at hand and the sorely-tried strength that had carried her so far forsook her.

But Joe, however weak, was considerate and when still at a distance he saw her raise a hand weakly in a gesture of questioning and insufferable suspense and he shouted out his news: "He's gittin' well."

Then the girl groped blindly out with her hands and but for Jerry O'Keefe who caught her elbow, she would have fallen. The taut nerves had loosened to that unspeakable relief--but for the moment it was collapse.

Brent had left the mountains a week after Alexander's safe return, but within two months he had occasion to return and he rode over to the mouth of Shoulder-blade. He had been told that Aaron McGivins, though he had made a swift and complete recovery from his wound, had after all only been reprieved. He had recently taken to his bed with a heart attack--locally they called it "smotherin' spells," and no hope was held out for his recovery.

As Brent rode on from the railroad toward the house he gained later tidings. The old man was dead.

He dismounted at the stile to find ministering neighbors gathered there and, as never before, the unrelieved and almost biblical antiquity of this life impressed itself on his realization. Here was no undertaker, treading softly with skilled and considerately silent helpers. No mourning wreath hung on the door. The rasping whine of the saw and clatter of the hammer were in no wise muted as men who lived nearby fashioned from undressed boards the box which was to be old Aaron's casket. Noisy sympathy ran in a high tide where doubtless the bereaved sought only privacy.