“If so, it will be after you are dead, Senor Bucky O'Connor, of the Arizona Rangers.”
Colonel Onate leaned forward and whispered something to General Carlo, who shook his head and frowned. Presently the black head of Chaves joined them, and the three were in excited discussion. Arms waved like signals, as is usual among the Latin races who talk with their hands and expressive shrugs of the shoulders. Outvoted by two to one, Onate appealed to the governor, who came up and listened, frowning, to both sides of the debate. In their excitement the voices raised, and to Bucky came snatches of phrases that told him his life hung in the balance. Carlo and Chaves were for having him executed out of hand, at latest, by sunset. The latter was especially vindictive. Indeed, it seemed to the ranger that ever since he had mentioned his name this man had set himself more malevolently to compass his death. Onate maintained, on the other hand, that their prisoner was worth more to them alive than dead. There was a chance that he might weaken before morning and tell secrets. At worst they would still have his life as a card to hold in case of need over the head of the rebels. If it should turn out that this was not needed, he could be executed in the morning as well as to-night.
It may be conceived with what anxiety Bucky listened to the whispered conversation and waited for the decision of the governor. He was a game man, noted even in a country famous for its courageous citizens, but he felt strangely weak now as he waited with that leather-crusted face of his bereft of all expression.
“Give him till morning to weaken. If he still stays obstinate, hang him in the dawn,” decided the governor, his beady eyes fixed on the prisoner.
Not a flicker of the eyelid betrayed the Arizonian's emotion, but for an instant the world swam dizzily before him. Safe till morning! Before then a hundred chances might change the current of the game in his favor. How brightly the sunshine flooded the room! What a glorious world it was, after all! Through the open window poured the rich, full-throated song of a meadow lark, and the burden of its blithe song was, “How good is this life the mere living.”
Chapter 13.
Bucky's First-Rate Reasons
How long Frances Mackenzie gave herself up to despair she never knew, but when at last she resolutely took herself in hand it seemed hours later. “Bucky told me to be brave, he told me not to lose my nerve,” she repeated to herself over and over again, drawing comfort from the memory of his warm, vibrant voice. “He said he would come back, and he hates a liar. So, of course, he will come.” With such argument she tried to allay her wild fears.
But on top of all her reassurances would come a swift, blinding vision of gallant Bucky being led to his death that crumpled her courage as a hammer might an empty egg shell. What was the use of her pretending all was well when at that very moment they might be murdering him? Then in her agony she would pace up and down, wringing her hands, or would beat them on the stone walls till the soft flesh was bruised and bleeding.
It was in the reaction, after one of these paroxysms of despair, that in her groping for an anchor to make fast her courage she thought of his letter.
“He said in three hours I was to read it if he didn't come back. It must be more than three hours now,” she said aloud to herself, and knew a fresh dread at his prolonged absence beyond the limit he had set.
In point of fact, he had been gone less than three-quarters of an hour, but in each one of them she had lived a lifetime of pain and died many deaths.
By snatches she read her letter, a sentence or a fragment of a sentence at a time as the light served. Luckily he had left a case nearly full of matches, and one after another of them dropped, charred and burned out, before she had finished reading. After she had read it, her first love letter, she must needs go over it again, to learn by heart the sweet phrases in which he had wooed her. It was a commonplace note enough, far more neutral than the strong, virile writer who had lacked the cunning to transmit his feeling to ink and paper. But, after all, it was from him, and it told the divine message, however haltingly. No wonder she burned her little finger tips from the flame of the matches creeping nearer unheeded. No wonder she pressed it to her lips in the darkness and dreamed her happy dream in those few moments when she was lost in her love before cruel realities pressed home on her again.
“I told you, Little Curly Haid, that I had first-rate reasons for not wanting to be killed by these Mexicans. So I have, the best reasons going. But they are not ripe to tell you, and so I write them.
“I guessed your secret, little pardner, right away when I seen you in a girl's outfit. If I hadn't been blind as a bat I would have guessed it long since, for all the time my feelings were telling me mighty loud that you were the lovingest little kid Bucky had ever come across.
“I'll not leave you to guess my secret the way you did me yours, dear Curly, but right prompt I'll set down adore (with one D) and say you hit the bull's-eye that time without expecting to. But if I was saying it I would not use any French words sweetheart, but plain American. And the word would be l-o-v-e, without any D's. Now you have got the straight of it, my dear. I love you—love you—love you, from the crown of that curly hear to the soles of your little feet. What's more, you have got to love me, too, since I am,
“Your future husband,
“BUCKY O CONNOR.
“P. S.—And now, Curly, you know my first-rate reasons for not meaning to get shot up by any of these Mexican fellows.”
So the letter ran, and it went to her heart directly as rain to the thirsty roots of flowers. He loved her. Whatever happened, she would always have that comfort. They might kill him, but they could not take away that. The words of an old Scotch song that Mrs. Mackenzie sang came back to her:
“The span o' life's nae large eneugh,
Nor deep enough the sea,
Nor braid eneugh this weary warld,
To part my love frae me.”
No, they could not part their hearts in this world or the next, and with this sad comfort she flung herself on the rough bed and sobbed. She would grieve still, but the wildness of her grief and despair was gone, scattered by the knowledge that however their troubles eventuated they were now one in heart.
She was roused after a long time by the sound of the huge key grating in the lock. Through the opened door a figure descended, and by an illuminating swing of the turnkey's lantern she saw that it was Bucky. Next moment the door had closed and they were in each other's arms. Bucky's stubborn pride, the remembrance of the riches which of a sudden had transformed his little partner into an heiress and set a high wall of separation between them, these were swept clean away on a great wave of love which took Bucky off his feet and left him breathless.
“I had almost given you up,” she cried joyfully.
Again he passed his hand across her face. “You've been crying, little pardner. Were you crying on account of me?”
“On account of myself, because I was afraid I had lost you. Oh, Bucky, isn't it too good to be true?”
The ranger smiled, remembering that he had about fourteen hours to live, if the Megales faction triumphed. “Good! I should think it is. Bully! I've been famished to see Curly Haid again.”
“And to know that everything is going to come out all right and that we love each other.”
“That's right good hearing and most ce'tainly true on my side of it. But how do you happen to know it so sure?” he laughed gayly.
“Why, your letter, Bucky. It was the dearest letter. I love it.”
“But you weren't to read it for three hours,” he pretended to reprove, holding her at arm's length to laugh at her.
“Wasn't it three hours? It seemed ever so much longer.”
“You little rogue, you didn't play fair.”