His voice changed again; it rang with a menacing command.

"Walkin' is good!" he said; "get goin'! You've got three minutes to get to that bend in the trail over by the crick. It's about half a mile. I'm turnin' my back. If I see you when I turn around I'm workin' that rifle there."

There was a silence which might have lasted a second. Only this small s.p.a.ce of time was required by the Taggarts to convince them that Calumet was in deadly earnest. Then, with Neal leading, they began to run toward the bend in the trail.

Shortly Calumet turned. The Taggarts had almost reached the bend, and while he watched they vanished behind it.

Calumet picked up the rifle which he had taken from the elder Taggart, mounted his horse, and drove the Taggart animals into the corral. He decided that he would keep them there for an hour or so, to give the Taggarts time to get well on their way toward the Arrow. Had he turned them loose immediately they no doubt would have overtaken their masters before the latter had gone very far.

Remounting, Calumet rode to the bend in the trail. He carried Taggart's rifle. About a mile out on the plain that stretched away toward the Arrow he saw the two men. They seemed to be walking rapidly.

Calumet returned to the ranchhouse, got a pick and shovel, and went back to the timber clump. An hour later he was again at the corral.

He led the Taggart horses out, took them to the bend in the trail, and turned them loose, for he antic.i.p.ated that the Taggarts would make a complaint to the sheriff about them, and if they were found in the Lazy Y corral trouble would be sure to result.

He watched them until they were well on their way toward the Arrow, and then he returned to the ranchhouse and went to bed. No one had heard him, he told himself with a grin as he stretched out on the bed beside Dade to sleep the hour that would elapse before daylight.

CHAPTER XX

BETTY TALKS FRANKLY

Betty, however, had not been asleep. After seeking her room she had heard the rapid beat of hoofs, and, looking out of her window, she had seen Calumet when he had raced from the ranchhouse in search of Taggart. Still watching at the window, she had seen him returning; saw him disappear into the timber clump.

Some time later she had observed the Taggarts emerge and run as though their lives depended on haste. She watched Calumet as he rode by her window to take the two horses to the corral, stared at him with fascinated eyes, holding her breath with horror as he walked from the ranchhouse to the timber clump with the pick and shovel on his shoulder; stood at the window with a great fear gripping her until he came back, still carrying the pick and shovel; watched him as he released the Taggart horses, drove them to the bend in the trail, and returned to the house. His movements had been stealthy, but she heard him when he came into the house and mounted the stairs. Then she heard him no more.

But a great dread was upon her. What meant that journey to the timber clump with the pick and shovel, and what had been done there during the hour that he had remained there? The idol she knew, was buried in a clearing in the timber clump; she did not know just where, for she had looked at the diagram only once, when Calumet's father had shown it to her. She had a superst.i.tious dread of the idol and would not, under any circ.u.mstances, have examined the diagram again. But she did not connect Calumet's visit to the timber clump with the diagram, for the latter was concealed in a safe place, under a board in the closet that led off her room; she had looked at it only once since Calumet had returned, and that only hastily, to make sure that it was still there, and she was certain that Calumet had no knowledge of its whereabouts.

Could Calumet have-- She pressed her hands tightly over her breast at this thought. She did not want to think that! But he had a violent temper, and there were those men in Lazette, Denver and the other man, whom he had-- She shuddered. That must be the explanation for his strange actions. But still she had heard no shot, and there was a chance that the diagram--

Tremblingly she made her way to the closet and removed the loose board.

A tin box met her eyes, the box in which she had placed the diagram, and she lifted the box out, her fingers shaking as she fumbled at the fastening and raised the lid.

The box was empty.

For a long time she sat there looking at it, anger and resentment fighting within her for the mastery.

Of course, the idol really belonged to Calumet; she would have given it to him in time, but that thought did not lessen her resentment against him. Somehow, though, she was conscious of a feeling of gratefulness that his visit to the timber clump had no significance beyond the recovery of the idol, and, despite his offense against her privacy, she began after a while to view the matter with greater calm. And though she did not close her eyes during the remainder of the night, lying on her back in bed and wondering how he had discovered the hiding place of the diagram, she came downstairs shortly after daylight and proceeded calmly about her duties.

She managed, though, to be near the kitchen door when Calumet came down, and, without appearing to do so, she watched his face closely as he prepared himself for breakfast. But without result. If he had gained possession of the idol his face did not betray him. But once during the meal she looked up unexpectedly, to see him looking at her with amused, speculative eyes. Then she knew he was gloating over her.

With an appearance of grave concern, and not a little well-simulated excitement, she approached him during the morning where he was working at the corral fence. She was determined to discover the truth.

"I have some bad news for you," she said.

"Shucks," he returned, with a grin that almost disarmed her; "you don't say!"

"Yes," she continued. "When your father left his other papers with me he also left a diagram of a place in the timber clump where the idol is hidden. Some time yesterday the diagram was stolen."

"You don't say?" he said.

His voice had not been convincing enough; there had been a note of mockery in it, and she knew he was guilty of the theft.

She looked at him fairly. "You took it," she accused.

"I didn't take it," he denied, returning her gaze. "But I've got it.

What are you goin' to do about it?"

"Nothing," she replied. "But do you think that was a gentleman's action--to enter my room, to search it--even for something that belonged to you?"

"No gentleman took it," he grinned; "therefore it couldn't have been me. I told you I had it; I didn't take it."

"Who did, then?"

"Do you know Telza?"

"Telza?"

"Toltec," he said; "a Toltec from Yucatan. He got it yesterday--last night--while you was ga.s.sin' to your friend, Neal Taggart."

She started, recollection filling her eyes. "A Toltec!" she said in an awed voice. "I have heard that they are fanatics where their religion is concerned; your father told me that his--that woman--Ezela--told him. She said that the tribe would never give up the search for the idol. He laughed at her; he laughed at me when he told me about it."

She drew a deep breath. "And so one of them has come," she said. "I thought I heard a noise upstairs last night," she added. "It must have been then."

"An'," he jeered, "you was so busy about that time that you couldn't go to investigate. That's how you guarded it--how you filled your trust."

She gazed fixedly at him and his gaze dropped. "You are determined to continue your insults," she said coldly.

He reddened. "I reckon you deserve them," he said sneeringly.

"Taggart's makin' a fool of you. I heard him palaverin' to you last night. I followed him, but lost him. Then I got into the clearin' in the timber. I run into a man named Al Sharp, who'd been knifed by the Toltec. Him an' the Toltec had been detailed by Taggart to get the diagram. Sharp said Taggart knowed my dad had drawed one. Telza got it last night while you was talkin' to Taggart. Frame-up. Sharp tried to take it away from Telza, an' Telza knifed him. Sharp's dead. I buried him last night. Telza dropped the diagram. I got it. I reckon Telza has sloped. Then I met Taggart an' his dad. They reckoned they didn't like my company overmuch an' they walked home. Didn't even wait to take their horses."

She drew a breath which sounded strangely like relief.

"Well," she said; "it was fortunate that you happened to be there to get the idol."

"Yes," he drawled, with a suspicious grin; "I reckon you feel a whole lot like congratulatin' me."

"I do," she said. "Of course you were not to have the idol just yet, but it is better for you to have it before the time than that the Taggarts should get hold of it."

"Do you know where the idol is hid?" he asked.

She told him no, that she had never consulted the diagram.

"I reckon," he said, looking into her steady eyes, "that you're tellin'

the truth. In that case it will be safe where it is, for a while.

I'll be lookin' it up when I get hold of the money."

Her chin raised triumphantly. "You will not get that so easily," she said. "But," she added, interestedly, "now that you know where the idol is, why don't you get it and convert it into cash?"