Billy Gee galloped up to the roadster. Dot and Lex had been standing back of it, watching in silence the ridiculous debacle of the Quintell mob caused by this lone knight of the road. The outlaw jerked his horse to a stop before the two, and glanced first at Lex, then at the girl. He smiled at her, an odd, expectant light in his eyes, and swept off his hat cavalierly.
“Yore father is headin’ for Blue Mud Spring, Miss Huntington. Warburton is campin’ there, as you mebby know. I reckon he’ll be safer.” He spoke in low, gentle tones.
She regarded him for a moment with an eagerness that she could not hide. The early morning light was on his face, its subtle rosiness softening it, showing a lingering loneliness and sympathy in the flashing eyes, a boyishness of feature, a charming recklessness of expression. He sat his horse gracefully, his figure garbed in whipcord, flowing white chaps covering his legs, his hat a splendid huge thing of gray felt, while about his neck hung the bandanna handkerchief that had recently served him as a mask.
She blushed, approval and admiration in her eyes, and held out her hand to him.
“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Billy Gee,” she said simply, a quiver in her voice.
“You don’t never need to, Dot. I owe you a bigger favor, you reckillect. I jest happened to fall in with the gang as it was ridin’ out here, an’ heerd what they were goin’ to do. But I’d not have got away with it, if you hadn’t come along in yore auto, Mr. Sangerly—that is, not easy,” he added, with a look at Lex. “Of course, you know this here’s Quintell’s doin’s. He’s payin’ pretty for it, let me tell you.”
Dot was gazing fixedly at him, a wistful light in her eyes that her heavy lashes concealed.
“Are you sure of that—that Quintell is at the bottom of this thing?” asked Lex, watching the other narrowly.
“Positive. All that talk about Huntington hiding me out was a bluff. They framed it so’s to git hold of him. I’m mighty glad Warburton’s in the country.”
Sangerly smiled. “I also want to thank you for what you’ve done for us, Billy Gee.” He added: “And for leaving our trains alone.”
“A man’ll do a thing right along, Mr. Sangerly, an’ his own mother won’t be able to change him. Then he jest nacherly changes.” He said this soberly, throwing a glance at the distant horsemen as he spoke.
They had begun to ride forward again slowly, in open formation, scattering to the flanks as they came, in a wide enveloping movement calculated to get the bandit in a crossfire that would make his escape impossible.
Dot noted the maneuver and looked at Billy Gee, mute entreaty in her eyes. He met her gaze and laughed easily.
“You an’ Mr. Sangerly better wait till they start chasin’ me, then go on into camp an’ arrange to quit the ranch. ’Tain’t safe to live there,” he said, as he gathered up the reins. “Quintell aims to drive you out of the deestrict, but he won’t. An’ say, Sangerly! I wisht you’d visit him to-night. How about eight o’clock? I want you to hear somepn for yoreself. There’s stick-up men who don’t use a gun like yours truly. Good-by, Dot! I want powerful much to have a long chat with you, some day. Did you see where Jerome Liggs struck it rich?” With a glance at Lex, he smiled at Dot, swept off his hat and went galloping away.
Wild yells broke from the advancing vigilantes. Their revolvers began to roar, and with quirt and spur they quickened their speed in pursuit of their quarry. Sangerly and Dot crouched down behind the roadster to avoid the hail of bullets that now screamed around them. Presently the cavalcade swept by, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, hanging motionless on the still morning air. Lashing their animals madly, they tore away across the plains, bending every energy to apprehend and vent their vengeance on the man who single-handed had frustrated their sinister plans.
It was now quite light, the eastern horizon glowing red and orange with the first shafts of the invisible sun.
Billy Gee headed straight for the Huntington ranch. His wiry little horse, trained to just such desperate get-aways as this, swept over the ground like the wind. Dot, her small hands clenched, her face flushing and paling by turns with what Lex believed was anxiety, watched the pursuit in silence. Now and again, through a rift in the cloud of dust, she caught sight of the lone rider. He sat his horse with the grace of a fleeing centaur, and she noticed that he was outdistancing his pursuers by degrees—saving his own animal, she thought. Once she saw him rise in his stirrups and wave his hat. She wrenched a white scarf she wore around her neck and waved back. After that, he kept gaining and gaining rapidly.
“What a wonderful horse!” exclaimed Lex, breaking a long silence. “Look! He’s gone past the ranch. They’ve given up. See? They’ve stopped. I’ve never seen such a remarkable exhibition of pluck in all my life, Miss Huntington. He’s an extraordinary bandit.”
Billy Gee, half a mile in the lead of the cavalcade, flashed by the Huntington gate. His mother and Tinnemaha Pete had witnessed the race. They stood just inside the fence, trembling, breathless.
“Jerome, my darling!” cried Mrs. Liggs wildly.
“I’m all right, honey,” Billy Gee called back, throwing her a smile. “I’ve headed Huntington for Blue Mud Spring. Dot an’ Sangerly got by. See you soon.”
“The sheriff—look out for that pesky critter, Warburton!” shrilled Tinnemaha Pete. “He’s lookin’ for you. Pop it to him, d’you hear! Pop it to him——”
“Jerome—the sheriff!” screamed Mrs. Liggs.
Billy Gee, out of hearing, nodded reassuringly, wondering what they had said.
A quarter of a mile beyond the ranch, he pulled his horse down to a walk. Pursuit had been abandoned. He laughed, sitting sidelong in the saddle, gazing back. Suddenly, as if in his very ear, a man’s voice rang out, saying:
“I got a bead on yore heart, Billy. Don’t look around. I don’t want to have to kill you, Billy.”
His horse was brought to a stop, and an expert hand reached up and disarmed him.
“Hullo Bob! Much obliged for bein’ so consid’rate,” said the outlaw, his head averted. “You’re jest the man I want to see.”
“I’ll bet I am,” chuckled Sheriff Warburton grimly. “Le’s see yore hands! All set, now.” He snapped the handcuffs on his prisoner.
Billy Gee turned and looked at his captor. He was afoot. Some distance off, his mule stood partially hidden by a clump of brush.
“If you don’t figger on losin’ me, we better start. That roarin’ layout is the Quintell bunch. They’re after me. They all but dynamited the Huntington place last night,” said Billy Gee evenly.
Warburton scowled. “What’s this you’re givin’ me?”
He glanced toward the ranch and made out the tiny figure of Mrs. Liggs standing in the garden, her face buried in her hands, and the scarecrow one of old Tinnemaha Pete, arms waving above his head, raging about in insane fashion.
The mob had collected and, slouching in its saddles, listened to Big George Rankin’s reasons why the chase should not be continued. Daylight had brought the leader of Geerusalem’s underworld face to face with the gravity of the night’s activity. Masked men were likely to fall into the toils of the law, even in so lawless a locality as this. Rankin did not relish being identified with the Huntington job. He had too much to lose. He did not care to take any unnecessary risks. What he told his confederates, however, was that they would be wasting time trying to track down an outlaw who, besides riding superior horseflesh, knew every square foot of the vast Mohave Desert.
At last, they started on their return to camp, tired, hungry, in no genial mood. Their raid had in great measure been for naught. Their plans to intimidate Lemuel Huntington into leaving the country, had been frustrated by the unexpected interference of Billy Gee. They had to confront Jule Quintell and his clique and admit miscarriage of those plans.
From discussing the matter among themselves, their bitterness toward Huntington, and every one who had to do with Huntington, increased. Lex Sangerly, Dot, and Mrs. Liggs came under a new scheme of persecution which they presently determined on, as they rode along. They would raid the ranch again that night, declared Rankin, and burn it to the ground, and they would take precautions that no Billy Gee would be about to defeat their aims. It is not strange that, with other more important matters in contemplation, the absence of Shorty and Logan—delegated to kill Lennox—was not noted. In fact, Shorty and Logan were not missed until late that afternoon.
For some reason that Lex Sangerly could not understand, it was with manifest reluctance that Dot finally agreed to accompany him into Geerusalem. She favored returning to the ranch, in the face of the knowledge that they would have to pass the disgruntled night riders approaching along the road.
“Mrs. Liggs will be safe until we come back,” argued Lex, as they went whirling away. “This fellow, Billy Gee, doesn’t seem like a man who would harm a defenseless old lady. Wasn’t that the most spectacular rescue, Miss Huntington?”
“I am sure he wouldn’t harm her,” said Dot slowly. “He’s wonderful! One man against forty cowardly curs. Didn’t I tell you in San Francisco what an extraordinary person he was?”
“He certainly isn’t what I’ve always pictured a bandit to be. He’s got character in his face. A good eye. A rather likable fellow, I’d say.”
She looked at him. “You’re going to meet him to-night, Mr. Sangerly. I know you’re going to admire Billy Gee hereafter. Hasn’t it struck you as odd that he is trusting you? What assurance has he that you won’t have him placed under arrest?”
“My understanding was that I was to visit Quintell. I didn’t suppose that I was to meet him there, also,” said Lex coldly. “Keeping an appointment with a criminal, Miss Huntington, is not exactly——”
“Mr. Sangerly, please don’t ask me how I know, but this meeting will be to your interest. I am positive of it. I feel it, with a woman’s intuition. Can’t you see that he is really risking his liberty so that you may hear something for yourself? That’s just what he said. He knows who you are—all about you. And you must bear in mind that there have been no more holdups on the Mohave & Southwestern. He has reformed. Please don’t smile. He has. I want to ask this favor of you: Meet him to-night, as you would keep any appointment, but not with an officer at your elbow. Will you do that?”
She had spoken rapidly, a strange, eager, pleading note in her voice. Her eyes, fixed on him, held an animated light, her cheeks the faintest tint of red. They were just turning into Geerusalem Gulch, the rays of the rising sun silvering the windows of the camp a mile away.
For a long moment, Lex stared at her, searching her pretty face. Then he broke into a laugh.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were—well, an ardent admirer of this far-famed train robber, and that would be putting it mildly. But your arguments are reasonable. I’ll do it. I promise to meet him under those conditions—this one time. You appear to know a lot about Billy Gee, don’t you, Miss Huntington?” he added curiously.
“I don’t mind confessing to you that I do,” she admitted in a naïve way that quite amazed him. “I can tell you that your road will never be robbed again by him.”
“Are you serious about that?” he asked. “It seems to me that a young woman of your standing wouldn’t be in a position to——”
“I was never more serious in my life, Mr. Sangerly, and as far as position is concerned, there are no social planes in this great land of sun, sand and silence. We are all human beings, some more fortunate than others, but no better under the skin.”
She met his look with a candor that caused him to gaze ahead, frowning at the road. There was a short silence.
“It—it isn’t possible that you have—influenced him?” he said hesitatingly, after a little.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t just call it that. I told you how he hid the twenty thousand dollars in my bureau drawer, unknown to me? Well, during the talk I had with him, I asked him if he would do something to repay me for taking care of him. He replied that he would—anything. And I exacted his promise that he would quit leading the life of a bandit. It was all done in one thrilling moment—one midnight. Posses were scouring the country for him at the time. He promised me, as you’ve just promised me. He’s made good. I think he’s magnificent.”
As Lex brought the roadster to a stop before the Miners’ Hotel, he said: “By the way, Billy Gee mentioned Jerome Liggs as though he knew him. Does he happen to be a relative of Mrs. Liggs? She had a son——”
“He is, and I know him.” She regarded Lex intently as she spoke.
“But that was her son’s name. We were kids together—chums.”
“It is he,” she said slowly.
Lex sat bolt upright, forgetting to clamber out of the roadster. Just then he was oblivious of the fact that a crowd was gathering on the sidewalk, and that Dot was the object of many eyes.
“Why, she told me he was dead!” he burst out. “I saw in the paper yesterday that he struck it rich. Where is he——”
The increasing buzz of voices around him made him glance up. He saw the throng of staring men. They packed the sidewalk, spilled into the street, partly surrounding the machine. There was something inimical in their manner, a bold severity in their scrutiny of Dot. Lex’s sudden display of astonishment and pleasure passed at sight of that menacing crowd. He sprang out of the car and threw open the door for the girl.
The hostility in the faces of the men had not been lost on Dot. It struck her instantly that this was not the elemental type of ruffian who had wrecked her home some hours before. These grim accusing individuals were substantial business men—the commercial backbone of Geerusalem. She grew pale.
Clinging to Lex’s arm, she entered the hotel, the crowd parting to let them pass. Once inside and with Mr. Merriman, the proprietor, hurrying toward them, she breathed easier. He beckoned them into a little writing room that adjoined the office.
“Is Mr. Huntington in camp?” he asked in low, excited tones.
Dot shook her head. “Get word to him not to show up here—to keep away,” he went on rapidly. “The report has got around that he’s been hiding Billy Gee, the outlaw. He is accused of being an accomplice, of being the relative or friend that the bandit was generally supposed to have on the plains. The camp is furious—ready to riot. They held a mass meeting last night and decided to——”
“That’s ridiculous, Mr. Merriman. It’s persecution,” cried Lex. “I just came from the ranch with Miss Huntington. I’ve been staying there. I know what I’m talking about. The report is a lie. Who circulated it?”
“I don’t know. But Jule Quintell acted as chairman of the meeting and did most of the speaking. Whether it’s true or not, the camp believes it. They’re backing Quintell to a man. They won’t stop at anything——”
“The beast!” broke in Dot, her eyes fiery with suppressed rage. “He sent a gang of his hoodlums out to our home last night, and they all but destroyed it, Mr. Merriman.” She turned to Sangerly. “Would you please send a machine out after Mrs. Liggs? We must not leave her alone out there. Tinnemaha Pete can look after—you know, the sick man. And do try to reach Sheriff Warburton at Blue Mud Spring. Mr. Merriman, have you a messenger we can trust? I’m going to have Quintell arrested.”