what happened to you,” she bade him playfully, after speech was again in order.
“Sure.” He caught her hand to lead her to the bench and she winced involuntarily.
“I burned it,” she explained, adding, with a ripple of shy laughter: “When I was reading your letter. It doesn't really hurt, though.”
But he had to see for himself and make much over the little blister that the flame of a match revealed to him. For they were both very much in love, and, in consequence, bubbling over with the foolishness that is the greatest inherited wisdom of the ages.
But though her lover had acquiesced so promptly to her demand for a full account of his adventures since leaving her, that young man had no intention of offering an unexpurged edition of them. It was his hope that O'Halloran would storm the prison during the night and effect a rescue. If so, good; if not, there was no need of her knowing that for them the new day would usher in fresh sorrow. So he gave her an account of his trial and its details, told her how he had been convicted, and how Colonel Onate had fought warily to get the sentence of execution postponed in order to give their friends a chance to rescue them.
“When Megales remanded me to prison I wanted to let out an Arizona yell, Curly. It sure seemed too good to be true.”
“But he may want the sentence carried out some time, if he changes his mind. Maybe in a week or two he may take a notion that—” She stopped, plainly sobered by the fear that the good news of his return might not be final.
“We won't cross that bridge till we come to it. You don't suppose our friends are going to sit down and fold their hands, do you? Not if I've got Mike O'Halloran and young Valdez sized up right. Fur is going to begin to fly pretty soon in this man's country. But it's up to us to help all we can, and I reckon we'll begin by taking a preliminary survey of this wickiup.”
Wickiup was distinctly good, since the word is used to apply to a frail Indian hut, and this cell was nothing less than a tomb built in the solid rock by blowing out a chamber with dynamite and covering the front with a solid sheet of iron, into which a door fitted. It did not take a very long investigation to prove to Bucky that escape was impossible by any exit except the door, which meant the same thing as impossible at all under present conditions. Yet he did not yield to this opinion without going over every inch of the walls many times to make sure that no secret panel opened into a tunnel from the room.
“I reckon they want to keep us, Curly. Mr. Megales has sure got us real safe this time. I'd be plumb discouraged about breaking jail out of this cage. It's ce'tainly us to stay hitched a while.”
About dark tortillas and frijoles were brought down to them by the facetious turnkey, who was accompanied as usual by two guards.
“Why don't my little birdies sing?” he asked, with a wink at the soldiers. “One of them will not do any singing after daybreak to-morrow. Ho, ho, my larks! Tune up, tune up!”
“What do you mean about one not singing after daybreak?” asked the girl, with eyes dilating.
“What! Hasn't he told you? Senor the ranger is to be hanged at the dawn unless he finds his tongue for Governor Megales. Ho, ho! Our birdie must speak even if he doesn't sing.” And with that as a parting shot the man clanged the door to after him and locked it.
“You never told me, Bucky. You have been trying to deceive me,” she groaned.
He shrugged his shoulders. “What was the use, girlie? I knew it would worry you, and do no good. Better let you sleep in peace, I thought.”
“While you kept watch alone and waited through the long night. Oh, Bucky!” She crept close to him and put her arms around his neck, holding him tight, as if in the hope that she could keep him against the untoward fate that was reaching for him. “Oh, Bucky, if I could only die for you!”
“Don't give up, little friend. I don't. Somehow I'll slip out, and then you'll have to live for me and not die for me.”
“What is it that the governor wants you to say that you won't?”
“Oh, he wants me to sell our friends. I told him to go climb a giant cactus.”
“Of course you couldn't do that,” she sighed regretfully.
He laughed. “Well, hardly, and call myself a white man.”
“But—” She blanched at the alternative. “Oh, Bucky, we must do something. We must—we must.”
“It ain't so bad as it looks, honey. You want to remember that Mike O'Halloran is on deck. What's the matter with him knocking out a home run and bringing us both in. I put a heap of confidence in that red-haided Irishman,” he answered cheerfully.
“You say that just to—to give me courage. You don't really think he can do anything,” she said wanly.
“That's just what I think, Curly. Some men have a way of getting things done. When you look at O'Halloran you feel this, the same as you do when you look at Val Collins. Oh, he'll get us out all right. I've been in several tighter holes than this one.” His mention of Collins suggested a diversion, and he took up a less distressing theme lightly. “Wonder what Val is doing at this precise moment. I'll bet he's beginning to make things warm for Wolf Leroy's bunch of miscreants. We'll have the robbers of the Limited behind the bars within two weeks now, or I miss my guess.”
He had succeeded in diverting her attention better than he had dared to hope. Her big eyes fixed on his much as if he had raised for her some forgotten spectre.
“That's another thing I must tell you. I didn't think to before. But I want you to know all about me now. Don't think me bad, Bucky. I'm only a girl. I couldn't help myself,” she pleaded.
“What is it you have done that is so awful?” he smiled, and went to gather her into his arms.
She stayed him with a gesture of her hand. “No, not yet. Mebbe after you know you won't want to. I was one of the robbers of the Limited.”
“You—what!” he exclaimed, for once struck dumb with sheer amazement.
“Yes, Bucky. I expect you'll hate me now. What is it you called me—a miscreant? Well, that's what I am.”
His arms slipped round her as she began to sob, and he gentled her till she could again speak. “Tell me all about it, little Curly.” he said.
“I didn't go into it because I wanted to. My master made me. I don't know much about the others, except that I heard the names they called each other.”
“Would you know them again if you saw them? But of course you would.”
“Yes. But that's it, Bucky. I hated them all, and I was in mortal fear all the time. Still—I can't betray them. They thought I went in freely with them—all but Hardman. It wouldn't be right for me to tell what I know. I've got to make you see that, dear.”
“You'll not need to argue that with me, honey. I see it. You must keep quiet. Don't tell anybody else what you've told me.”
“And will they put me in the penitentiary when the rest go there?”
“Not while Bucky O'Connor is alive and kicking,” he told her confidently.
But the form in which he had expressed his feeling was unfortunate. It brought them back to the menace of their situation. Neither of them could tell how long he would be alive and kicking. She flung herself into his arms and wept till she could weep no more.
Chapter 14.
Le Roi Est Mort; Vive Le Roi
When the news reached O'Halloran that Megales had scored on the opposition by arresting Bucky O'Connor, the Irishman swore fluently at himself for his oversight in forgetting the Northern Chihuahua. So far as the success