The Bells of San Juan - Jackson Gregory (most read books TXT) 📗

down to the horses and yet not enough light to show us up to a chance early rider down below. Then we'll swing off to the west, make a wide bend, ride through Las Estrellas and get back into San Juan when we please. That is you will; I'll leave you outside of Las Estrellas, showing you the way. And, while we eat, I am going to tell you something."

"About Galloway?" she asked quickly. "Explaining what you meant by Galloway's hang-out?"

"Yes. And more than that."

For a little she stood, looking at him very gravely. Then she spoke in utter frankness.

"Mr. Norton, I think that I can see your position; you were so circumstanced through Mr. Lane's being hurt that you had to bring either Dr. Patten or me here. You decided it would be wiser to bring me. There is something of a compliment in that, isn't there?"

"You don't know Caleb Patten yet!" growled Brocky a bit savagely.

"Already it seems to me," she went on, "that you have a pretty hard row to hoe. It is evident that you have discovered a sort of thieves' headquarters here; that, for your own reasons, you don't want it known that you have found it. To say that I am not curious about it all would be talking nonsense, of course. And yet I can assure you that I hold you under no obligation whatever to do any explaining. You are the sheriff and your job is to get results, not to be polite to the ladies."

But Norton shook his head.

"You know what you know," he said seriously. "I think that if you know a little more you will more readily understand why we must insist on keeping our mouths shut . . . all of us."

"In that case," returned the girl, "and before you boil that coffee into any more hopelessly black a concoction than it already is, I am ready to drink mine and listen. Coffee, Mr. Lane?"

"Had mine, thanks," answered Brocky. "Spin the yarn, Rod."

Norton put down his frying-pan, the bacon brown and crisp, and rose to his feet.

"Will you come this way a moment, Miss Page?" he asked. "To begin with, seeing is believing."

She followed him as she had, last night, back into the cave in which she had slept. But Norton did not stop here. He went on, Virginia still following him, came to that other hole in the rock wall which she had noted by the lantern light.

"In here," he said. "Just look."

He swept a match across his thigh, holding it up for her. She came to his side and looked in. First she saw a number of small boxes, innocent appearing affairs which suggested soda-crackers. Beyond them was something covered with a blanket; Norton stepped by her and jerked the covering aside. Startled, puzzled by what she saw, she looked to him wonderingly. Placed neatly, lying side by side, their metal surfaces winking back at the light of Norton's match, were a number of rifles. A score of them, fifty, perhaps.

"It looks like a young revolution!" she cried, her gaze held, her eyes fascinated by the unexpected.

"You've seen about everything now," he told her, the red ember of a burnt-out match dropping to the floor. "Those boxes contain cartridges. Now let's go back to Brocky."

"But they'll see that you have been here. . . ."

"I'll come back in a minute with the lantern; I want a further chance to look things over. Then I'll put the blanket back and see that not even that charred match gives us away. And we'd better be eating and getting started."

With a steaming tin of black coffee before her, a brown piece of bacon between her fingers, she forgot to eat or drink while she listened to Norton's story. At the beginning it seemed incredible; then, her thoughts sweeping back over the experiences of these last twenty-four hours, her eyes having before them the picture of a sheriff, grim-faced and determined, a wounded man lying just beyond the fire, the rough, rudely arched walls and ceiling of a cave man's dwelling about her, she deemed that what Norton knew and suspected was but the thing to be expected.

"Jim Galloway is a big man," the sheriff said thoughtfully. "A very big man in his way. My father was after him for a long time; I have been after him ever since my father's death. But it is only recently that I have come to appreciate Jim Galloway's caliber. That's why I could never get him with the goods on; I have been looking for him in the wrong places.

"I estimated that he was making money with the Casa Blanca and a similar house which he operates in Pozo; I thought that his entire game lay in such layouts and a bit of business now and then like the robbing of the Las Palmas man. But now I know that most of these lesser jobs are not even Galloway's affair, that he lets some of his crowd like the Kid or Antone or Moraga put them across and keep the spoils, often enough. In a word, while I've been looking for Jim Galloway in the brush he has been doing his stunt in the big timber! And now. . . ." The look in Norton's eyes suggested that he had forgotten the girl to whom he was talking. "And now I have picked up his trail!"

"And that's something," interposed Brocky Lane, a flash of fire in his own eyes. "Considering that no man ever knew better than Jim Galloway how to cover tracks."

"You see," continued Norton, "Jim Galloway's bigness consists very largely of these two things: he knows how to keep his hands off of the little jobs, and he knows how to hold men to him. Bisbee, of Las Palmas, goes down in the Casa Blanca; his money, perhaps a thousand dollars, finds its way into the pockets of Kid Rickard, Antone, and maybe another two or three men. Jim Galloway sees what goes on and does no petty haggling over the spoils; he gets a strangle-hold on the men who do the job; it costs him nothing but another lie or so, and he has them where he can count on them later on when he needs such men. Further, if they are arrested, Jim Galloway and Galloway's money come to the front; they are defended in court by the best lawyers to be had, men are bribed and they go free. As a result of such labors on Galloway's part I'd say at a rough guess that there are from a dozen to fifty men in the county right now who are his men, body and soul.

"With a gang like that at his back, a man of Galloway's type has grown pretty strong. Strong enough to plan . . . yes, and by the Lord, carry out! . . . the kind of game he's playing right now.

"A half-breed took sick and died a short time ago, a man whom I'd never set my eyes on particularly. It happened that he was a superstitious devil and that he was a second or third cousin of Ignacio Chavez. He was quite positive that unless the bells rang properly for him he would go to hell the shortest way. So he sent for Ignacio and wound up by talking a good deal. Ignacio passed the word on to me. And that was the first inkling I had of Galloway's real game. In a word, this is what it is:

"He plans on one big stroke and then a long rest and quiet enjoyment of the proceeds. You have seen the rifles; he'll arm a crowd of his best men . . . or his worst, as you please . . . swoop down on San Juan, rob the bank, shooting down just as many men as happen to be in the way, rush in automobiles to Pozo and Kepple's Town, stick up the banks there, levy on the Las Palmas mines, and then steer straight to the border. And, if all worked according to schedule, the papers across the country would record the most daring raid across the border yet, blaming the whole affair on a detachment of Gringo-hating Mexican bandits and revolutionists."

Virginia stared at him, half incredulously. But the look in Norton's eyes, the same look in Brocky Lane's, assured her.

"Why do you wait then?" she asked sharply. "If you know all this, why don't you arrest the man and his accomplices now? Before it is too late?"

"And have the whole country laugh at me? Where's my evidence? Just the word of a dead Indian, repeated by another Indian, and a few rifles hid in the mountains? Even if we proved the rifles were Galloway's, and I don't believe we could, how would we set about proving his intention? No; I've talked it all over with the district attorney and we can't move yet. We've got our chance at last; the chance to watch and get Jim Galloway with the goods on. But we've got to wait until he is just ready to strike. And then we are going to put a stop to lawlessness in San Juan once and for all."

"But," she objected breathlessly, "if he should strike before you are ready?"

"It is our one business in life that he doesn't do it. We know what he is up to; we have found this hiding-place; we shall keep an eye on it night and day. He doesn't know that we have been here; no one knows but ourselves. You see now, Miss Page, why I couldn't bring Patten here? Patten talks too much and Galloway knows every thought in Patten's mind. And you understand how important it is for you to forget that you have been here?"

She sat silent, staring into the embers of the dying fire.

"The thing which I can't understand," she said presently, "is that if Jim Galloway is the 'big man' that you say he is he should do as much talking as he must have done; that he should have told his plans to such a man as the Indian who told them to Ignacio Chavez."

"But he didn't tell all of this," Norton informed her. "The Indian died without guessing what I have told you. He merely knew that the rifles were here because Galloway had employed him to bring them and because he was the man who told Galloway of this hiding-place. He believed that Galloway's whole scheme was to smuggle a lot of arms and ammunition south and across the border, selling to the Mexicans. But from what little he could tell Chavez and from what we found out for ourselves, the whole play became pretty obvious. No, Galloway hasn't been talking and he has been playing as safe as a man can upon such business as this. His luck was against him, that's all, when the Indian died and insisted on being rung out by the San Juan bells. There's always that little element of chance in any business, legitimate or otherwise. . . . And now, if you'll finish your breakfast I'll show you a view you'll never forget and then we'll hit the trail."

"But, Mr. Lane," she asked, "you don't intend to leave him here all alone? He will get well with the proper attention; but be must have that."

"Within another hour or so," Norton told her, "Tom Cutter will be back with one of Brocky's cowboys. They'll move Lane into a cañon on the other side of the mountain. Oh, I know he oughtn't to be moved, but what else can we do? Besides, Brocky insists on it. Then they'll arrange to take care of him; if necessary you'll come out again to-morrow night?"

"Of course," she said. She went to Brocky and held out her hand to him. "I understand now, I think, why you would refuse to die, no matter how badly you were hurt, until you had helped