rode slowly forward, his hand on the butt of the revolver that still lay in its scabbard. The Winchester covered every step of his progress, but he neither hastened nor faltered, though he knew his life hung in the balance. If his steely blue eyes had released for one moment the wolfish ones of the villain, if he had hesitated or hurried, he would have been shot through the head.
But the eyes of a brave man are the king of weapons. Hardman's fingers itched at the trigger he had not the courage to pull. For such an unflawed nerve he knew himself no match.
“Keep back,” he screamed. “Damn it, another step and I'll fire!”
But he did not fire, though Collins rode up to him, dismounted, and threw the end of the rifle carelessly from him.
“Don't be rash, Hardman. I've come here to put you under arrest for robbing the T. P. Limited, and I'm going to do it.”
The indolent, contemptuous drawl, so free of even a suggestion of the strain the sheriff must have been under, completed his victory. The fellow lowered his rifle with a peevish oath.
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Mr. Collins.”
“I guess not,” retorted the sheriff easily. “Del, you better relieve Mr. Hardman of his ballast. He ain't really fit to be trusted with a weapon, and him so excitable. That Winchester came awful near going off, friend. You don't want to be so careless when you're playing with firearms. It's a habit that's liable to get you into trouble.”
Collins had not shaved death so closely without feeling a reaction of boyish gaiety at his adventure. It bubbled up in his talk like effervescing soda.
“Now we'll go into a committee of the whole, gentlemen, adjourn to the stable, and have a little game of 'Button, button, who's got the button?' You first, Mr. Hardman. If you'll kindly shuck your coat and vest, we'll begin button-hunting.”
They diligently searched the miscreant without hiding anything pertaining to “J. H. begins hear.”
“He's bound to have it somewhere,” asseverated Collins. “It don't stand to reason he was making his getaway without that paper. We got to be more thorough, Del.”
Hawkes, under the direction of his friend, ripped up linings and tore away pockets from clothing. The saddle on the bronco and the saddle-blankets were also torn to pieces in vain.
Finally Hawkes scratched his poll and looked down on the wreckage. “I hate to admit it, Val, but the old fox has got us beat; it ain't on his person.”
“Not unless he's got it under his skin,” agreed Collins, with a grin.
“Maybe he ate it. Think we better operate and find out?”
An idea hit the sheriff. He walked up to Hardman and ordered him to open his mouth.
The jaws set like a vise.
Collins poked his revolver against the closed mouth. “Swear for us, old bird. Get a move on you.”
The mouth opened, and Collins inserted two fingers. When he withdrew them they brought a set of false teeth. Under the plate was a tiny rubber bag that stuck to it. Inside the bag was a paper. And on it was written four lines in Spanish. Those lines told what he wanted to know. They, too, were part of a direction for finding hidden treasure.
The sheriff wired at once to Bucky, in Chihuahua. Translated into plain English, his cipher dispatch meant: “Come home at once. Trail getting red hot.”
But Bucky did not come. As it happened, that young man had other fish to fry.
Chapter 9.
“Adore Has Only One D.”
After all, adventures are to the adventurous. In this prosaic twentieth century the Land of Romance still beckons to eager eyes and gallant hearts. The rutted money-grabber may deny till he is a nerve-racked counting-machine, but youth, even to the end of time, will laugh to scorn his pessimism and venture with elastic heel where danger and mystery offer their dubious hazards.
So it was that Bucky and his little comrade found nothing of dulness in the mission to which they had devoted themselves. In their task of winning freedom for the American immured in the Chihuahua dungeon they already found themselves in the heart of a web of intrigue, the stakes of which were so high as to carry life and death with them in the balance. But for them the sun shone brightly. It was enough that they played the game and shared the risks together. The jocund morning was in their hearts, and brought with it an augury of success based on nothing so humdrum or tangible as reason.
O'Connor carried with him to the grim fortress not only his permit for an inspection, but also a note from O'Halloran that was even more potent in effect. For Colonel Ferdinand Gabilonda, warden of the prison, had a shrewd suspicion that a plot was under way to overthrow the unpopular administration of Megales, and though he was an office-holder under the present government he had no objection to ingratiating himself with the opposition, providing it could be done without compromising himself openly. In other words, the warden was sitting on the fence waiting to see which way the cat would jump. If the insurgents proved the stronger party, he meant to throw up his hat and shout “Viva Valdez.” On the other hand, if the government party crushed them he would show himself fussily active in behalf of Megales. Just now he was exerting all his diplomacy to maintain a pleasant relationship with both. Since it was entirely possible that the big Irishman O'Halloran might be the man on horseback within a very few days, the colonel was all suave words and honeyed smiles to his friend the ranger.
Indeed he did him the unusual honor of a personally conducted inspection. Gabilonda was a fat little man, with a soft, purring voice and a pompous manner. He gushed with the courteous volubility of his nation, explaining with great gusto this and that detail of the work. Bucky gave him outwardly a deferent ear, but his alert mind and eyes were scanning the prisoners they saw. The ranger was trying to find in one of these scowling, defiant faces some resemblance to the picture his mind had made of Henderson.
But Bucky looked in vain. If the man he wanted was among these he had changed beyond recognition. In the end he was forced to ask Gabilonda plainly if he would not take him to see David Henderson, as he knew a man in Arizona who was an old friend of his, and he would like to be able to tell him that he had seen his friend.
Henderson was breaking stone when O'Connor got his first glimpse of him. He continued to swing his hammer listlessly, without looking up, when the door opened to let in the warden and his guests. But something in the ranger's steady gaze drew his eyes. They were dull eyes, and sullen, but when he saw that Bucky was an American, the fire of intelligence flashed into them.
“May I speak to him?” asked O'Connor.
“It is against the rules, senor, but if you will be brief—” The colonel shrugged, and turned his back to them, in order not to see. It must be said for Gabilonda that his capacity for blinking what he did not think it judicious to see was enormous.
“You are David Henderson, are you not?” The ranger asked, in a low voice.
Surprise filtered into the dull eyes. “That was my name,” the man answered bitterly. “I have a number now.”
“I come from Webb Mackenzie to get you out of this,” the ranger said.
The man's eyes were no longer dull now, but flaming with hatred. “Curse him, I'll take nothing from his hands. For fifteen years he has let me rot in hell without lifting a hand for me.”
“He thought you dead. It can all be explained. It was only last week that the mystery of your disappearance was solved.”
“Then why didn't he come himself? It was to save his little girl I got myself into this place. If I had been in his shoes I would have come if I'd had to crawl on my hands and knees.”
“He doesn't know yet you are