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the cord, ready in the hands of Morgan to tie the

wrists of the captive. An inspiration came to Davey. He was standing with

the lamp just before him, and rather close to his side of the table. That

table was low, and Davey, leaning over, blew out the lamp with a single

puff.

 

There were stars outside, burning brightly. And there was even a

scattering of reddish streaks of light from the stove itself, where the

fire shone through certain gaping cracks. However, the extinguishing of

the smoky lamp acted like double darkness in which surprise was the

chiefest element.

 

Two guns instantly spoke like two thunderstrokes on the heels of one

another. Pungent scent of burned gunpowder stung the nostrils of all in

the cabin.

 

There was a tumbling of wrestling bodies, curses, and then a wild scream

of pain and terror.

 

Through the doorway, dimly silhouetted against the stars, leaped a man

who was throwing out his arms before him, and still yelling as he fled.

 

Then Davey, who had put out the lamp, lighted it again. It revealed an

odd scene.

 

In the doorway stood the Kid, with a rifle all ready in his capable

hands. He was looking after the fugitive, who now departed with a rapid

pattering of hoofs, putting his horse at a dead gallop. But the Kid did

not open fire. Instead, he lowered the weapon and turned back into the

room, as though he cared too little about the matter to shoot down the

fleeing rider.

 

In the room itself, old Ma Trainor was cowering into a corner. Her

husband stood in front of her, with a short-handled axe gripped in both

hands, and a wild light in his eyes. There was a faint hint of red on the

edge of the heavy blade. An explanation, perhaps, of the shriek of terror

which had filled the cabin the moment or two before this.

 

But, most interesting of all, in the corner of the room where two men had

been struggling, one of them was now rendered helpless. That was Sam

Deacon, and he who had pinned him down was none other than Bud Trainor!

 

“Thanks, Bud,” said the Kid. “It’s all right, now. Let him get up after

you’ve taken his guns away.”

 

The guns were promptly taken away, and the two got to their feet.

 

The thin, white face of Deacon was covered with a ghastly smile, his

habitual expression, which he deepened now in order to show that he was

not at all afraid.

 

But afraid he was, most ghastly afraid, and this smile of his only

accented his terror.

 

He looked at Bud and snarled from the side of his mouth: “You

double-crossin’, sneakin’, dirty, hound!”

 

And Bud winced, and made no reply. He hung his head, doggedly, until his

small mother ran to him out of the corner of the room and cast her meager

arms around him.

 

“Oh, Buddy, Buddy darlin’!” she sobbed against his breast. “My own boy,

my brave boy. Oh, thank Heaven, thank Heaven!”

 

He cradled her in his arms, and he turned to the wall for fear that the

others might see what was happening upon that grim face of his. His

father gripped his arm with a brown old hand and said not a word, but it

was plain that the ties which held that family together had been riveted

with something stronger than steel, in the last moment.

 

The Kid, in the meantime, sat down in the chair and drew a breath.

 

“Well,” he said frankly, “I thought that I was a goner, that time.”

 

Then he nodded toward Davey.

 

“You’re a cool kid,” said he. “I can thank you first, Davey. And, Bud,

something more than cancels out, too. He lost two thousand and put up a

fight, besides. And this Deacon is a wild cat. I know all about him.

Aren’t you, Deacon?”

 

The smile with which he asked this last question turned the pallor of

Deacon from yellow-white to green-white. He blinked. But resolutely he

maintained his smile.

 

“Well, what’s the game?” said Deacon, lightly.

 

“Sit down and make yourself a cigarette,” said the Kid. “There’s no

hurry. We’ll just have a friendly little chat. That’s all.”

 

“About what?” asked Deacon.

 

“Oh, about old times. And new ones, too. I want to know who hired the

pair of you for this job, Deacon.”

 

“Yeah? You wanta know?” said Deacon. “You ain’t expecting me to talk,

Kid, are you?”

 

“Yes,” drawled the Kid. “You’ll talk, all right.”

 

Sam Deacon shrugged his lean shoulders. His eyes flickered aside toward

the door. Then they returned to the face of the Kid, who was lighting a

cigarette. Almost desperately, Deacon followed that example.

 

“You’ll talk,” said the Kid. “You’ll tell me everything.”

 

“I’ll not say a word,” declared Deacon, and pinched his lips together

with an effort.

 

“Deacon,” said the Kid, “don’t you think that you ought to pay something

for your life?”

 

“I’m no double-crossing curl” said Deacon, looking bitterly at Bud

Trainor.

 

“All right,” said the Kid. “You don’t double-cross. You simply murder,

eh? Well, Davey, take a lid off of that stove and freshen the fire and

put the poker in under the lid, will you?”

 

Davey, without a word, did as he was told.

 

And Deacon watched him, curiously. Sweat began to gather on his forehead.

 

But the silence continued, through which the Kid was smoking quietly.

 

At length he said: “Bud, will you take your mother and father outside of

the house? Davey, you’d better go along, too. What’s going, to happen now

won’t be pretty to watch. You’d better get out of earshot. There may be a

little noise in here.”

 

“Kid,” said Deacon huskily, “whatcha got on your mind?”

 

“When that poker’s hot,” said the Kid, “it ought to make a good running

iron. That’s all I mean.”

 

Deacon got up slowly from his chair.

 

“You ain’t serious, Kid,” he gasped.

 

“No, only joking,” said the Kid, “if you intend to talk.” Deacon rubbed a

hand violently across his face.

 

“Aye,” said he. “You’ll do what you say! There ain’t nothin’ but a devil

inside you. Kid, whatcha wanta know?”

Chapter 14 - A Compact

The Kid, at this, smiled in the most amiable manner.

 

“I want to find out about the whole idea,” he said. “Who sent you, why

you were sent, and how much money was promised.”

 

“Send out this crowd,” said Deacon glumly. “If I gotta tell, there ain’t

any reason why I should tell anybody besides you.”

 

“They’ll go out,” admitted the Kid. “That is, Davey and the old folks

will. But not Bud.”

 

“Not Bud?” almost shouted the other. “What has that sneak got in the way

of a right to hear?”

 

“Why,” said the Kid, “Bud and I are partners, old son. You ought to know

that, by now.”

 

“Partners? A fine partner he promised to be to you,” said Deacon.

 

Already the others were leaving the cabin, though reluctantly, but Bud

lingered near the door.

 

“You mean that you want me to stay here?” he asked incredulously of the

Kid.

 

“Of course I do,” said the latter.

 

“And why? Why?” shouted Deacon, infuriated until he trembled. “Here’s the

gent that sold you, and then changed his mind and double-crossed me and

Morgan. Why should he stay?”

 

“You thought that he’d sold me,” said the Kid. “No, no, Deacon. Bud

Trainor’s not the sort of a fellow to ever do that. He’s not the type for

it, at all. Bud is in partnership with me, and when you tried to buy him,

he simply led you into the middle of the trap.”

 

“By heck!” cried Deacon. “Is that it? Is that why you were so cool, all

the time? You knew that you had something up your sleeve?”

 

“Of course I did,” answered the Kid, genially. “You never had a chance

against Bud and me, because all the while Bud was waiting for my signal

before he jumped you from behind.”

 

Bud Trainor, listening near the door, dropped his head a little, so that

the bewilderment in his face might not be too openly apparent to Deacon.

 

The latter twisted from side to side, in the agony of his

humiliation—not humiliation because he had attempted to take advantage

of the Kid and failed, but shame, because he seemed to have been tricked

and trapped.

 

“Have I gone and been a fool?” he asked bitterly.

 

“You’ve been a fool, Deacon,” said the Kid gently. “You might have known

that Bud Trainor isn’t the double-crossing kind.”

 

Deacon turned aside and glared at Trainor.

 

The latter, lifting his head, gave to the Kid an odd look and a faintly

twisted smile, as though there were some deep consideration between them.

But he said nothing.

 

“I see it!” said Deacon. “Bud was simply drawing us on!”

 

“How about the news that you have for us, Deacon?”

 

“Say it over again, what you want to know?”

 

“Who sent you?”

 

“Why, Jack Harbridge up in the Mogollons is the feller. He wants to get

even with you for the game you trimmed him in, two-three year back.”

 

“Harbridge?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That poker game still sticks in his crop, eh?”

 

“It sure does.”

 

“He tried to crook me, that game, and I only stacked the deck with two

crimps in it. He found the first crimp, but he banged into the second

one. Well, it’s Harbridge, is it?”

 

“Aye, it’s Harbridge.”

 

“I’m glad to know that. What was the price?”

 

“Ten thousand flat.”

 

“That’s worth while. I’m glad that Jack puts that high a price on me.

Where did you see Jack last?”

 

“Up there in the hills. About two weeks back.”

 

“You been drawing a long bow at me, eh?”

 

“It was worth time.”

 

“It wouldn’t take that long to get down here.”

 

“We didn’t know where you were, for a while. And then we wanted a little

practice with our guns. We expected a hard job ahead of us. And if I’d

plugged you when I came through that door—”

 

He paused, his teeth showing, but not in a smile.

 

“You wouldn’t do that, Deacon,” said the Kid. “Bud, see if that poker’s

hot enough now, will you? I want it white hot.” Bud went toward the

stove.

 

“What’s the idea?” asked Deacon, growing whiter than he had been.

 

“I have to burn the truth out of you,” said the Kid. “I don’t want lies

from you, Deacon.”

 

“I’m telling you the honest truth.”

 

“Then I’ll have to burn honester truth out of you. How about the poker?”

 

“It’s pretty nigh ready to melt,” said Bud, lifting the lid from the

roaring, glowing stove.

 

“It ought to be ready for the work, then,” said the Kid. “Bring it here,

will you?”

 

Bud, accordingly, first wrapped a rag around his hand and then withdrew

the poker from the fire. The end of it was white hot, and snapped out

little bright sparkles. It seemed, indeed, as though the tough iron had

been melting, and was forming a liquid drop at the point.

 

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Deacon, in a gasp. “I’ve told you—”

 

The Kid smiled.

 

“You’re a rat, Deacon,” said he. “You’re a low rat and you always were a

rat. I’ll have the truth out of you or I’ll mark you so’s the boys will

be able

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