"All right," he said simply. "I guess there's still plenty of time. I've got a good horse at the lower end of the street. Take care of yourself.

So long!"

The man clattered down the stairs, and Moran turned to his desk, from which he took some papers and a roll of money, which he stuffed into his pockets. In the hallway he paused for a moment to examine a wicked looking revolver, which he took from his hip pocket; for, contrary to the custom of the country, he did not wear his gun openly in a holster.

Convinced that the weapon was in good working order, he walked calmly down to the street, sobered completely by this sudden call on his reserve powers.

His horse, a large, rawboned gray, was where he had left it, and shaking his fist in the direction of the vigilantes, he mounted and rode off. He meant to make a wide detour and then work back again to the Double Arrow range. If the ranch were really deserted, he meant to fire the buildings, before attempting his escape. Such a revenge would be a trifle compared to that which he had planned, but it would be better than nothing, while one more offense would not lengthen his term in jail any, if he were caught afterward. He felt in his pocket for the whiskey flask, and swore when he found it missing. He wanted the liquor, but he wanted the flask more, for its a.s.sociations; he drew rein and thought of returning to search for it, but realizing the folly of this, he pressed on again.

The round-about way he took was necessarily a long one and the ride entirely sobered him, except for a crawling sensation in his brain, as though ants were swarming there, which always hara.s.sed him after a debauch. At such times he was more dangerous than when under the first influence of whiskey. It was close upon noon, and the silvery sagebrush was shimmering beneath the direct rays of the sun, when he rode his lathered horse out of a cottonwood grove to gaze, from the edge of a deep draw, at Wade's ranch buildings. That very morning a gaunt, gray timber-wolf had peered forth at almost the same point; and despite Moran's bulk, there was a hint of a weird likeness between man and beast in the furtive suspicious survey they made of the premises. The wolf had finally turned back toward the mountains, but Moran advanced. Although he was reasonably certain that the place was deserted, a degree of caution, acquired overnight, led him first to a.s.sure himself of the fact. He tied his horse to a fence post and stealthily approached the house to enter by the back door.

Dorothy was alone in the building, for her mother had gone with the overly confident Barker to pick blackberries, and the Chinese cook was temporarily absent. The girl was making a bed, when the door swung open, and she turned with a bright greeting, thinking that her mother had returned. When she saw Moran leering at her, the color fled from her cheeks, in a panic of fright which left her unable to speak or move. She was looking very pretty and dainty in a cool, fresh gown, which fitted her neatly, and her sleeves were rolled up over her shapely forearms, for the task of housekeeping which she had a.s.sumed. In her innocent way, she would have stirred the sentiment in any man, and to the inflamed brute before her she seemed all the more delectable because helpless.

Here was a revenge beyond Moran's wildest dreams. To her he appeared the incarnation of evil, disheveled, mud-splashed and sweaty, as his puffed and blood-shot eyes feasted on her attractiveness.

"Good morning!" He came into the room and closed the door. "I didn't expect to find you, but since you're here, I'll stop long enough to return your visit of the other night. That's courteous, ain't it?"

Dorothy gulped down the lump in her throat, but made no reply. Realizing the importance of a show of bravery, she was fighting to conquer her panic.

"You're sure a good-looking kid," he went on, trying to approach her; but she put the width of the bed between him and herself. "Each time I see you, you're better looking than you were the last time. Say, that last time, we were talking some about a kiss, weren't we, when we were interrupted?"

"Mr. Wade may come in at any moment," Dorothy lied desperately, having found her tongue at last. "You'd better not let him find you here."

"I shouldn't mind," Moran said nonchalantly. "Fact is, on my way out of the country, I thought I'd pay a farewell call on my good friend, Wade.

I'm real sorry he ain't here--and then again I'm not. I'll--I'll leave my visiting card for him, anyhow." He chuckled, a nasty, throaty, mirthless chuckle that sent chills up and down the girl's spine. "Say, what's the matter with giving me that kiss now? There's n.o.body around to interrupt us this time."

Dorothy shuddered, for already she had divined what was in his mind. The avid gleam in his eyes had warned her that he would not restrain himself for long, and summoning all her strength and courage, she prepared to meet the fearful crisis she must face.

"Will you please go?"

"No!" Moran chuckled again, and stepped toward her. "Will you come to me now, or shall I go after you?"

"You brute! You coward!" she cried, when she found herself, after a desperate struggle, held firmly in his grasp.

She screamed, then, at the top of her lung power until his hand fell firmly across her mouth, and she could only struggle with the mad strength of desperation. Her muscles could offer him no effective resistance, although for a moment the sudden fury of her attack drove him back, big though he was; but it was only for a moment. It gave her a chance to scream once more; then, closing in upon her, he seized her again in his ape-like embrace. She fought like a cornered wild-cat, but slowly and surely he was bending her to his will. Her nails were leaving raw marks upon him, until the blood ran down his face, and presently catching between her teeth one of the fingers of the hand which gagged her, she bit it so fiercely that he cried out in pain.

"Curse you, you little she-devil," he grunted savagely. "I'll make you pay twice for that!"

"Gordon! Oh, come to me! Quick! Quick!"

Quivering all over, she sank on her knees before the brute who confronted her, a figure of distress that must have appealed to the heart of any man above the level of a beast. But in the heat of pa.s.sion and rage, Moran had lost kinship with even the beasts themselves. l.u.s.t burned in his eyes and twisted his features horribly as he seized her again, exhausted by the brave struggle she had made, and all but helpless in his grasp.

"Gordon! Mother! Barker! Save me! Oh, my G.o.d!"

CHAPTER XX

THE STORM BURSTS

The vigilantes had entered Crawling Water at about ten o'clock, when the saloons and gambling joints were in full swing. Ribald songs and oaths from the players, drinkers, and hangers-on floated into the street, with now and then the bark of a six-shooter telling of drunken sport or bravado. Few people were abroad; good citizens had retired to their homes, and the other half was amusing itself.

So it was, at first, that few noticed the troop of hors.e.m.e.n which swung in at one end of the town, to ride slowly and silently down the main street. Each of the hundred men in the troop carried a rifle balanced across his saddle pommel; each was dressed in the garb of the range-rider; and the face of each, glimpsed by the light from some window or doorway, was grimly stern. The sight was one calculated to make Fear clutch like an ice-cold hand at the hearts of those with guilty consciences; a spectacle which induced such respectable men as saw it to arm themselves and fall in behind the advancing line. These knew without being told what this noiseless band of stern-eyed riders portended, and ever since the coming of Moran into Crawling Water Valley, they had been waiting for just this climax.

Before the first of the dives, the troop halted as Wade raised his right arm high in the air. Twenty of the men dismounted to enter the glittering doorway, while the remainder of the vigilantes waited on their horses. A few seconds after the twenty had disappeared, the music of the piano within abruptly ceased. The shrill scream of a frightened woman preceded a couple of pistol shots and the sounds of a scuffle; then, profound silence. Presently the twenty reappeared guarding a handful of prisoners, who were disarmed and hustled across the street to an empty barn, where they were placed under a guard of citizen volunteers.

So they proceeded, stopping now and then to gather in more prisoners, who were in turn escorted to the temporary jail, while the column continued its relentless march. The system in their attack seemed to paralyze the activities of the Moran faction and its sycophants; there was something almost awe-inspiring in the simple majesty of the thing.

By now the whole town was aware of what was taking place; men were scurrying hither and thither, like rats on a sinking ship. Occasionally one, when cornered and in desperation, put up a fight; but for the most part, the "bad men" were being captured without bloodshed. Few bad men are so "bad" that they would not rather live, even in captivity, than come to their full reward in the kingdom of Satan. Frightened and disorganized, the enemy seemed incapable of any concentrated resistance.

As Santry succinctly put it: "They've sure lost their goat."

Not until the troop reached Monte Joe's place, which was the most imposing of them all, was real opposition encountered. Here a number of the choicer spirits from the Moran crowd had a.s.sembled and barricaded the building, spurred on by the knowledge that a rope with a running noose on one end of it would probably be their reward if captured alive.

Monte Joe, a vicious, brutal ruffian, was himself in command and spoke through the slats of a blind, when the vigilantes stopped before the darkened building.

"What d'you want?" he hoa.r.s.ely demanded.

"You, and those with you," Wade curtly answered.

The gambler peered down into the street, his little blood-shot eyes blinking like a pig's. "What for?" he growled.

"We'll show you soon enough," came in a rising answer from the crowd.

"Open up!"

Monte Joe withdrew from the window, feeling that he was doomed to death, but resolved to sell his life dearly. "Go to h.e.l.l!" he shouted.

Wade gave a few tersely worded orders. Half a dozen of his men ran to a nearby blacksmith shop for sledge hammers, with which to beat in the door of the gambling house, while the rest poured a hail of bullets into the windows of the structure. Under the onslaught of the heavy hammers, swung by powerful arms, the door soon crashed inward, and the besiegers poured through the opening. The fight which ensued was short and fierce.

Outnumbered though the defenders were, they put up a desperate battle, but they were quickly beaten down and disarmed.

Shoved, dragged, carried, some of them cruelly wounded and a few dead but all who lived swearing horribly, the prisoners were hustled to the street. Last of all came Monte Joe, securely held by two brawny cow-punchers. At sight of his mottled, blood-besmeared visage, the crowd went wild.

"Hang him! Lynch the dirty brute! Get a rope!" The cry was taken up by fifty voices.

Hastily running the gambler beneath a convenient tree, they proceeded to adjust a noose about his neck. In another instant Monte Joe's soul would have departed to the Great Beyond but for a series of interruptions.

Wade created the first of these by forcing his big, black horse through the throng.

"Listen, men!" he roared. "You must stop this! This man--all of them--must have a fair trial."

"Trial be d.a.m.ned!" shouted a bearded rancher. "We've had enough law in this valley. Now we're after justice."

Cheering him the crowd roared approbation of the sentiment, for even the law-abiding seemed suddenly to have gone mad with blood-l.u.s.t. Wade, his face flushed with anger, was about to reply to them when Santry forced his way to the front. Ever since Wade had released the old man from jail, he had been impressed with the thought that, no matter what his own views, grat.i.tude demanded that he should instantly back up his employer.

"Justice!" snapped the old man, pushing his way into the circle that had formed around the prisoner, a pistol in each hand. "Who's talkin' o'

justice? Ain't me an' Wade been handed more dirt by this bunch o'

crooks than all the rest o' you combined? Joe's a pizenous varmint, but he's goin' to get something he never gave--a square deal. You hear me?

Any man that thinks different can settle the p'int with me!"

He glared at the mob, his spa.r.s.e, grizzled mustache seeming actually to bristle. By the dim light of a lantern held near him his aspect was terrifying. A gash on his forehead had streaked one side of his face with blood, while his eyes, beneath their s.h.a.ggy thatch of brows, appeared to blaze like live coals. Involuntarily, those nearest him shrank back a pace but only for a moment for such a mob was not to be daunted by threats. A low murmur of disapproval was rapidly swelling into a growl of anger, when Sheriff Thomas appeared.

"Gentlemen!" he shouted, springing upon a convenient box. "The law must be respected, and as its representative in this community...."