The tramp lay curled like a snake behind the mound. He drew Winthrop's gun from its holster and inspected it, shaking his head as he slid it back again. "She's new and will pull stiff. That means she'll throw to the right. Well, I got the little Gat. to open up the show with."

William Stanley Winthrop, despite his resolution, found that his hands trembled and that his heart beat chokingly. He wanted to shout, to run out toward the hors.e.m.e.n, to do anything rather than sit stupidly silent by the water-hole.

The two riders loped up. The constable dismounted. "Nothin' doin'," he said, stooping to drink.

"No. Nothing doing," echoed the man on horseback.

"That," muttered Overland Red, squirming a little higher behind the bushes, "was intended for me. I know that tone. It means there's a h.e.l.l of a lot doin'. Well, I'm good and ready." And he lifted both of his red, hairy hands to the edge of the hole and both his hands were "filled."

About then the man on the pony began to ride out from the water-hole in a wide circle. The constable came from the spring. Overland noticed that he kept Winthrop between himself and the sage on the ridge. "That settles it," Overland swiftly concluded. "They're on. I'm right sad to have to do it."

The heavy, s.p.a.ce-blunted report of the circling horseman's gun--and Overland calmly spat out the sand that flitted across his lips. The rider had ventured a shot and had ridden behind a ridge instantly.

Winthrop exclaimed at these strange tactics.

"He seen a jack run in there," explained the constable, leering.

"This here's gettin' interestin'," mumbled Overland as the constable unholstered his gun and sauntered toward the ridge. "I got to get the gent on the cayuse. The other one don't count."

The rider had appeared from behind the ridge. Slowly Overland raised his right hand. Then the old fighting soul of Jack Summers, sheriff of Abilene, rebelled. "No! Dam' if I'll ambush any white man." And he leaped to his feet. "Overland Limited!" he shouted, and with his battle-cry came the quick tattoo of shots. The horseman wavered, doubled up, and pitched forward to the sand.

Overland Red dropped and rolled to one side as the constable's gun boomed ineffectually. The tramp lay still.

A clatter of empty stirrups, the swish of a horse galloping past, and silence.

Slowly the constable approached Overland's prostrate figure. "Time's up for you!" he said, covering the tramp with his gun.

"Water!" groaned Overland.

"Water, eh? Well, crawl to it, you rat!"

Winthrop, his heart thumping wildly, followed the constable. So this was desert law? No word of warning or inquiry, but a hail of shots, a riderless horse,--two men stretched upon the sand and the burning sun swinging in a cloudless circle above the desolate silence.

"You seem to kind of recognize your friend now," sneered the constable.

That was too much for Winthrop's overstrung nerves. His pulses roared in his ears. With a leap he seized the constable's gun and twisted at it with both hands. There was an explosion, and Winthrop grinned savagely, still struggling. With insane strength he finally tore the gun from the other's grasp. "You're the only coward in this affair," he gasped, as he levelled the gun at the constable. That officer, reading danger in Winthrop's eye, discreetly threw up his hands.

"Good!" exclaimed Overland, sitting up suddenly. "That was risky, but it worked out all right. I had a better plan. You go set down, Billy. I'll see this gent safe toward home."

Winthrop laughed hysterically. "Why, you--you--you're a joke!" he cried.

"I thought--"

"So did the little man with the pie-pan pinned on his shirt," said Overland. "You keep his gun. I got to see how bad the other gent's. .h.i.t."

An hour later the constable of the desert town led his pony toward the railroad. On the pony was his companion, with both arms bandaged. He leaned forward brokenly, swaying and cursing. "I'll--get him, if it takes--a thousand years," he muttered.

"I reckon it'll take all of that," growled the constable. "You can have all you want of his game, Saunders,--I'm through."

Out by the water-hole, Overland turned to Winthrop. "I'm glad you enjoyed the performance," he said, grinning. "We've opened the pot and the best man rakes her down. She's desert law from now to the finish."

CHAPTER XII

"FOOL'S LUCK"

Gaunt, unshaven, weary, Winthrop rested on the crest of the northern range. Overland, looking for water, toiled on down the slope with the little burro. Winthrop rose stiffly and shuffled down the rocks. Near the foot of the range he saw the burro just disappearing round a bend in a canon. When he came up with Overland, the tramp had a fire going and had pitched the tent. The canon opened out to a level green meadow, through which ran a small stream. They had come a long day's journey from the water-hole on the other side of the range. They were safe from ordinary pursuit. That evening beside the fire, Overland Red told again the story of the dead prospector, the gold, and the buried papers. In his troubled slumbers the Easterner dreamed of pacing along the track counting the ties, and eventually digging in the sand, digging until his very soul ached with the futility of his labor. Waking, he never lost faith in the certainty of finding the place. He now knew the tramp well enough to appreciate that the other had not risked his own life and nearly killed one of his pursuers through sheer bravado, or fear, or personal hatred. Something more potent was beneath the tramp's motives--some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had dreamed a dream about an adopted waif and a beautiful young girl. The dream was big. Its fulfillment would require much money. There was more of the poet in Overland Red than his best friend had ever imagined.

Three days they rested in the wild seclusion of the canon. The silence, the solemnity of the place, fascinated Winthrop. The tiny stream, cold and clear, the vegetation, in a region otherwise barren-gray and burning,--the arid Mojave with its blistering heat, the trees, the painted rocks,--ochre, copper, bronze, red, gray, and dim lilac in the distances,--the gracious shade, the little burro, half ludicrous, half pathetic in its stolid acceptance of circ.u.mstances,--all had a charm for him that soothed and satisfied his restlessness.

Meanwhile the indefatigable Overland spun yarn after yarn of the road and range, and rolled innumerable cigarettes with one hand, much to Winthrop's amus.e.m.e.nt.

The third morning Winthrop had awakened feeling so completely refreshed that he begged Overland to allow him to make an attempt to find the hidden papers and the little bag of gold. Overland demurred at first, fearing that the Easterner would become lost or stricken with the heat.

Throughout the day Winthrop argued stubbornly that he ran no risk of capture, while Overland did. He a.s.serted that he could easily find the water-hole, which was no difficult task, and from there he could go by compa.s.s straight out to the tracks. Overland had told him that somewhere near a little culvert beneath the track was the marked tie indicating the hiding-place of the dead prospector's things. It would mean a journey of a day and a night, traveling pretty continuously.

Finally Overland agreed to Winthrop's plan to make the attempt the following day.

At the foot of the range Overland gave his companion a canteen and a piece of gunnysack wrapped round some hardtack and jerked beef.

"Don't I need my gun this time?" queried Winthrop.

"Nope, Billy. 'Cause why? You don't generally kill a little gopher or a little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion.

Correct. Now a tenderfoot totin' a gun is dangerouser than any rattler that ever hugged hisself to sleep in the sun--and most fellas travelin'

the desert knows it. Why, I'm plumb scared of a gun-totin' tenderfoot, myself. Not havin' a gun will be your best recommend, generally speakin'. Stick to the bugs, Billy; stick to the bugs."

"Well, you ought to know."

"I got seven puckers in my hide to prove what I say. Six of 'em were put there by plumb amachoors in the gun line; fellas I never took pains to draw on quick, never suspectin' nothin'. The other, number seven, was put there by a gent that meant business. He died of a kind of lead poisonin' right immediate."

They shook hands, the battered, sunburned adventurer, rough-bearded, broad-chested, genial with robust health, and the slender, almost delicately fashioned Easterner, who had forgotten that there were such things as lungs, or doctors,--for the time being.

"Say, Billy, you need a shave," commented Overland, as the other turned to begin his journey across the desert.

Winthrop grinned. "You need--er--decapitating," he retorted, glancing back. Then he faced the south and strode away.

Overland, ascending the range, paused halfway up. "Decap-itating," he muttered. "Huh! That's a new one on me. De-cap--Let's see! Somethin' to do with a fella's hat, I reckon. It's easy to run a word down and hole it if you got brains. Mebby Billy meant for me to get a new one. Well, the constable's friend only put one hole in her--she's a pretty good hat yet."

Overland found his slow way back to the hidden canon. He felt a little lonely as he thought of Collie. He gave the burro some sc.r.a.ps of camp bread, knowing that the little animal would not stray so long as he was fed, even a little, each day.

It was while he was scouring the fry-pan that he noticed the black sand across the stream. Leisurely he rose and scooped a panful of the sand and gravel and began washing it, more as a pastime than with an idea of finding gold. Slowly he oscillated the whispering sand, slopping the water out until he had panned the lot. He spread his bandanna on a smooth rock and gently emptied the residue of the washing on it.

"Color--but thin," he said. "Let's try her again."