"Why?" Drew asked. "Why pick him up?"

"Why? Because he's in this, too!" Spath retorted. "Probably rode straight to Kitch.e.l.l's hideout. Now, Mr. Rennie, time's up. The captain authorized this visit because he thought you might just get something out of the prisoner. Well, you did: an admission he's been pa.s.sing under a false name. We know _what_ he is-a renegade horse thief."

Drew was no longer completely aware of either man. But, as Rennie turned away, he broke through the mist of confusion which seemed to be enclosing him more tightly than the walls of the cell.

"Shannon. Where's Shannon?"

Hunt Rennie's head swung around. "What about Johnny?" he demanded.

"He took my papers-out of my belt!" This was probably the worst thing he could do, to accuse Johnny Shannon without proof.

"What papers, and why should he want them?" If Rennie had been remote before, now he was as chill as the Texas northers Anse had joked about.

"The parole, the horse papers, some letters...."

"You saw him take them? You know why he should want them?"

Drew shook his head once. He could not answer the second question now.

"Then how do you know Johnny took them?"

How did he know? Drew could give no sane reason for his conviction that it had been Johnny's fingers which had looted the pocket of papers and stuffed leaves and gra.s.s in their place.

"You'll have to do better than that, kid!" Spath laughed. "You must have known Shannon was gone, too. By the time he's back from Mexico he won't need to prove that's a lie."

Drew disregarded the lieutenant's comments-Rennie was the one who mattered. And in that moment the Kentuckian knew that he had made a fatal mistake. Why hadn't he agreed to telegraph Kentucky? Now there was no hope. As far as _Don_ Cazar was concerned, one Drew Kirby could be written off the list. Drew had made an enemy of the very person he most wanted to convince. The Kentuckian swung around and walked to the one small, barred window through which he could see the sun. He walked blindly, trying not to hear those spurred boots moving out of the door ... going away....

14

Three good strides one way, four another to measure the cell. Morning sun, gone by noon, daylight outside the window becoming dusk in turn. They fed him army rations, delivered under guard. And the guard never spoke. There was no use asking questions, and Drew had none left to ask, anyway.

Except, by the morning of the second day after Rennie's visit, his wonder grew. Why was Bayliss delaying a formal charge against him? This wait could mean that the captain was not finding it so easy to prove he really did have a "renegade horse thief" in custody. But Drew knew he must pin no hopes on a thread that fine.

What had happened to Anse? And Shannon-gone to Mexico? He must have ridden back with the _Coronel_. Drew could expect nothing more from Rennie, or Topham. The Trinfans? Spath had marched them back, too, along with his prisoner, but the lieutenant had not had them under arrest. The mustangers were well known in this district and could prove their reason for being where they were found. And Kitch.e.l.l had raided one of their corrals last season, so they had no possible tie with the elusive outlaw. Probably by now the Trinfans had returned to their hunt for the Pinto.

No, there was no use thinking that anyone was going to get him out of this-no one but himself, and he had bungled badly so far. Drew, his body tired with pacing the small cell, flung himself down on the bunk and listened to the sounds of the camp. He had pretty well worked out the routine by those sounds. The camp itself was a makeshift affair. Its core, of which this cell was a part, was an old ranch building. There were tents and a few lean-tos, on a plateau bounded on the east by a ravine, on the west by a creek bottom. Huts of stone, rawhide, and planks served as officers' quarters. In fact it was no more a fort than the bivouacs he had known during the war. Unfortunately this room was the most substantial part.

If he could only get out, and pick up his horses, then perhaps he could head for Mexico. There was a war on down there; a soldier could find an anonymous refuge in a foreign army. Shelby's whole Confederate command had crossed the Rio Grande to do just that. That part was easy. To get out of here-that was what he could not accomplish.

Two men always came together when they fed him, and they didn't open the cell door, but just pushed the plate through. A sentry was on duty outside. Drew could beat time to the sound of those footfalls day and night. And suppose he did get free of the cell; he would have to have a horse, supplies, arms....

Drew rolled over on the cot and buried his face on his folded arms. He might as well try to get out of here by using will power alone to turn locks! They left the lantern burning all night to keep a light on him, and the sentry looked in the peephole every time he pa.s.sed.

The Kentuckian did not know just when it was that he became conscious of the noise overhead. Lizards-maybe even rats-could move about the beams, hidden by the age-browned manta strips. But surely this was too late in the season for a lizard to be so lively by night when the temperature dropped with the rapidity of a weight plunging earth-ward. And rats aloft....

Drew did not change his position on the bunk, but his body tensed. No rat would stay in one place, gnawing with such purpose and concentration at a spot in the darkest corner of the cell roof. Anse? How or why the Texan could be at work there, Drew did not know. But that there was a stealthy attempt being made to reach him from above he was now sure.

His teeth closed on his wrist as he lay listening, to that scratching above, to the regular advance and retreat of the sentry. He heard the man pause by the door and knew he was under inspection. Well, let the Yankee look! He would see his prisoner peacefully sleeping.

Now the trooper was moving on, the noise above became sharper. There was a slight crackle. The linen roofing sagged under a burden, and Drew caught his breath in a gasp. Miraculously the yellow cloth supported the object-a bulge as big as a saddlebag. A portion of the roof which had given way?

The scratching, which had stilled, began again. Then the bulge was gone, pulled away from above. Dust sprinkled down from the disturbed manta. In the next instant Drew moved.

Using his hands on either side of his body, he raked up the straw which filled the box bunk. In a swift moment, timed to the sentry's pa.s.sing to the farthest point from the spy hole, the Kentuckian rolled to the floor, slapped and pulled the blanket into place over the mounded straw. Not too good-it certainly would not fool any inspection within the room. But in the lantern light and this far from the door, the improvised dummy might satisfy the glance of the sentry for some precious seconds.

Drew was across the cell, flattened against the wall under the still quivering strip of material. More bulges appeared and disappeared, fragments fallen and retrieved. Then a sharp point pierced downward, the tip of a knife slitting the tough stuff. A slash, and the manta peeled back against the wall of the cell.

"_Senor_-?" It was so faint a whisper Drew hardly caught it.

"Yes!" He looked up with desperate eagerness into what he had hoped to see-the dark splotch of a hole.

A rawhide lariat smoothly braided, oiled into supple silkiness, dangled through. Drew got his hands on it, pulled it back against the wall as the sentry returned. He held his breath during that pause beside the spy hole, a pause which lengthened alarmingly. Then his body jerked in answer to a sound a half second before he realized what manner of sound. The sentry had sneezed. He sniffled, too, loudly; then he went on to complete his beat. The blanket and the straw-they had worked!

Drew pulled at the lariat, was answered by a return jerk. He jumped and began to climb. Then, with a wrench he was through the hole, other hands helping to pull.

"Come-p.r.o.nto!" The hands were pushing, urging. He wriggled forward.

Teodoro Trinfan! But why?

There was no time to ask; Drew could only obey directions. They made a worm's progress along the full length of the old ranch building, and dropped the lariat for a ladder to the ground. They crossed the small part of the camp near the ravine with the same caution they had used on the roof.

"_Senor_..." Teodoro's lips were at Drew's ear as the boy pressed against him in a thin cover of shadow. "Left-a big stone-put your hands on it-swing about and down."

Drew had to take that on blind trust. He had no idea what kind of a drop waited below, and only by firm will power did he follow orders. But his boot soles met a solid surface. Then he was caught about the waist and Hilario's voice whispered to him.

"_Senor_, you stand-so." Hands fumbled about him, looping him with a supporting lariat. "Now-we go! Your hand, _senor_." Drew's left hand was caught in a tight grip which pulled him to the right, face to the wall. So secured, he inched along what he knew must be the face of the ravine, his toes on some small ledge midway between lip and foot.

Somehow the three of them reached ground level, their diagonal course of descent putting some distance between them and the camp. In spite of the cold of the night, Drew was wet with sweat as they threaded through heady sage brush. Now came the scent of horses, the sound of a hoof stamped impatiently on gravel.

"Trinfan?"

Topham! Here?

"_Si._"

At Hilario's hissed a.s.sent, a figure detached itself from the utter black of the bushes and moved forward into a sliver of moonlight.

"You got him?"

"I'm here, if that's what you mean!" Drew answered for himself.

"And you'll be gone, soon," the gambler replied. "But there's one thing I have to know, Kirby. Were you telling the truth to Rennie-do you believe Johnny took your papers?"

What had that to do with the matter at hand? Drew wondered. But from the urgency of the demand he knew it did mean a great deal to Topham.

"Yes, I'm sure. But I can't prove it-unless I find them with him. He may have destroyed them already." Drew put into words the black foreboding which had ridden him for days.