The Cross-Cut by Courtney Ryley Cooper (best short novels .txt) 📗

as he went forward. Already the hoist was working; from far above came the grinding of wheels on rails as the skip was lowered. A wave of the hand, then Bardwell and Harry entered the big, steel receptacle. At the wall the greasy workman pulled three times on the electric signal; a moment more and the skip with its two occupants had passed out of sight.

A long wait followed while Fairchild strove to talk of many things,—and failed in all of them. Things were happening too swiftly for them to be put into crisp sentences by a man whose thoughts were muddled by the fact that beside him waited a girl in a whipcord riding suit—the same girl who had leaped from an automobile on the Denver highway and—

It crystallized things for him momentarily.

"I 'm going to ask you something after a while—something that I 've wondered and wondered about. I know it was n't anything—but—"

She laughed up at him.

"It did look terrible, didn't it?"

"Well, it would n't have been so mysterious if you had n't hurried away so quick. And then—"

"You really did n't think I was the Smelter bandit, did you?" the laugh still was on her lips. Fairchild scratched his head.

"Darned if I know what I thought. And I don't know what I think yet."

"But you 've managed to live through it."

"Yes—but—"

She touched his arm and put on a scowl.

"It's very, very awful!" came in a low, mock-awed voice. "But—" then the laugh came again—"maybe if you 're good and—well, maybe I 'll tell you after a while."

"Honest?"

"Of course I 'm honest! Is n't that the skip?"

Fairchild walked to the shaft. But the skip was not in sight. A long ten minutes they waited, while the great steel carrier made the trip to the surface with Harry and Sheriff Bardwell, then came lumbering down again. Fairchild stepped in and lifted Anita to his side.

The journey was made in darkness,—darkness which Fairchild longed to turn to his advantage, darkness which seemed to call to him to throw his arms about the girl at his side, to crush her to him, to seek out with an instinct that needed no guiding light the laughing, pretty lips which had caused him many a day of happiness, many a day of worried wonderment. He strove to talk away the desire—but the grinding of the wheels in the narrow shaft denied that. His fingers twitched, his arms trembled as he sought to hold back the muscles, then, yielding to the impulse, he started—

"Da-a-a-g-gone it!"

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

But Fairchild was n't telling the truth. They had reached the light just at the wrong, wrong moment. Out of the skip he lifted her, then inquired the way to the sheriff's office of this, a new county. The direction was given, and they went there. They told their story. The big-shouldered, heavily mustached man at the desk grinned cheerily.

"That there's the best news I 've heard in forty moons," he announced. "I always did hate that fellow. You say Bardwell and your partner went out on the Ohadi road to head the young 'un off?"

"Yes. They had about a fifteen-minute start on us. Do you think—?"

"We 'll wait here. They 're hefty and strong. They can handle him alone."

But an hour passed without word from the two Searchers. Two more went by. The sheriff rose from his chair, stamped about the room, and looked out at the night, a driving, aimless thing in the clutch of a blizzard.

"Hope they ain't lost," came at last.

"Had n't we better—?"

But a noise from without cut off the conversation. Stamping feet sounded on the steps, the knob turned, and Sheriff Bardwell, snow-white, entered, shaking himself like a great dog, as he sought to rid himself of the effects of the blizzard.

"Hello, Mason," came curtly.

"Hello, Bardwell, what 'd you find?"

The sheriff of Clear Creek county glanced toward Anita Richmond and was silent. The girl leaped to her feet.

"Don't be afraid to talk on my account," she begged. "Where's Harry? Is he all right? Did he come back with you?"

"Yes—he's back."

"And you found Maurice?"

Bardwell was silent again, biting at the end of his mustache. Then he squared himself.

"No matter how much a person dislikes another one—it's, it's—always a shock," came at last. Anita came closer.

"You mean that he 's dead?"

The sheriff nodded, and Fairchild came suddenly to his feet. Anita's face had grown suddenly old,—the oldness that precedes the youth of great relief.

"I 'm sorry—for any one who must die," came finally. "But perhaps—perhaps it was better. Where was he?"

"About a mile out. He must have rushed his horse too hard. The sweat was frozen all over it—nobody can push a beast like that through these drifts and keep it alive."

"He did n't know much about riding."

"I should say not. Did n't know much of anything when we got to him. He was just about gone—tried to stagger to his feet when we came up, but could n't make it. Kind of acted like he 'd lost his senses through fear or exposure or something. Asked me who I was, and I said Bardwell. Seemed to be tickled to hear my name—but he called it Barnham. Then he got up on his hands and knees and clutched at me and asked me if I 'd drawn out all the money and had it safe. Just to humor him, I said I had. He tried to say something after that, but it was n't much use. The first thing we knew he 'd passed out. That's where Harry is now—took him over to the mortuary. There isn't anybody named Barnham, is there?"

"Barnham?" The name had awakened recollections for Fairchild; "why he's the fellow that—"

But Anita cut in.

"He 's a lawyer in Denver. They 've been sending all the income from stock sales to him for deposit. If Maurice asked if he 'd gotten the money out, it must mean that they meant to run with all the proceeds. We 'll have to telephone Denver."

"Providing the line's working." Bardwell stared at the other sheriff. "Is it?"

"Yes—to Denver."

"Then let's get headquarters in a hurry. You know Captain Lee, don't you? You do the talking. Tell him to get hold of this fellow Barnham and pinch him, and then send him up to Ohadi in care of Pete Carr or some other good officer. We 've got a lot of things to say to him."

The message went through. Then the two sheriffs rose and looked at their revolvers.

"Now for the tough one." Bardwell made the remark, and Mason smiled grimly. Fairchild rose and went to them.

"May I go along?"

"Yes, but not the girl. Not this time."

Anita did not demur. She moved to the big rocker beside the old base burner and curled up in it. Fairchild walked to her side.

"You won't run away," he begged.

"I? Why?"

"Oh—I don't know. It—it just seems too good to be true!"

She laughed and pulled her cap from her head, allowing her wavy, brown hair to fall about her shoulders, and over her face. Through it she smiled up at him, and there was something in that smile which made Fairchild's heart beat faster than ever.

"I 'll be right here," she answered, and with that assurance, he followed the other two men out into the night.

Far down the street, where the rather bleak outlines of the hotel showed bleaker than ever in the frigid night, a light was gleaming in a second-story window. Mason turned to his fellow sheriff.

"He usually stays there. That must be him—waiting for the kid."

"Then we 'd better hurry—before somebody springs the news."

The three entered, to pass the drowsy night clerk, examine the register and to find that their conjecture had been correct. Tiptoeing, they went to the door and knocked. A high-pitched voice came from within.

"That you, Maurice?"

Fairchild answered in the best imitation he could give.

"Yes. I 've got Anita with me."

Steps, then the door opened. For just a second, Squint Rodaine stared at them in ghastly, sickly fashion. Then he moved back into the room, still facing them.

"What's the idea of this?" came his forced query. Fairchild stepped forward.

"Simply to tell you that everything 's blown up as far as you 're concerned, Mr. Rodaine."

"You needn't be so dramatic about it. You act like I 'd committed a murder! What 've I done that you should—?"

"Just a minute. I would n't try to act innocent. For one thing, I happened to be in the same house with you one night when you showed Crazy Laura, your wife, how to make people immortal. And we 'll probably learn a few more things about your character when we 've gotten back there and interviewed—"

He stopped his accusations to leap forward, clutching wildly. But in vain. With a lunge, Squint Rodaine had turned, then, springing high from the floor, had seemed to double in the air as he crashed through the big pane of the window and out to the twenty-foot plunge which awaited him.

Blocked by the form of Fairchild, the two sheriffs sought in vain to use the guns which they had drawn from their holsters. Hurriedly they gained the window, but already the form of Rodaine had unrolled itself from the snow bank into which it had fallen, dived beneath the protection of the low coping which ran above the first-floor windows of the hotel, skirted the building in safety and whirled into the alley that lay beyond. Squint Rodaine was gone. Frantically, Fairchild turned for the door, but a big hand stopped him.

"Let him go—let him think he 's gotten away," said grizzled Sheriff Mason. "He ain't got a chance. There 's snow everywhere—and we can trail him like a hound dawg trailing a rabbit. And I think I know where he 's bound for. Whatever that was you said about Crazy Laura hit awful close to home. It ain't going to be hard to find that rattler!"

CHAPTER XXV

Fairchild felt the logic of the remark and ceased his worriment. Quietly, as though nothing had happened, the three men went down the stairs, passed the sleeping night clerk and headed back to the sheriff's office, where waited Anita and Harry, who had completed his last duties in regard to the chalky-faced Maurice Rodaine. The telephone jangled. It was Denver. Mason talked a moment over the wire, then turned to his fellow officer.

"They 've got Barnham. He was in his office, evidently waiting for a call from here. What's more, he had close to a million dollars in currency strapped around him. Pete Carr 's bringing him and the boodle up to Ohadi on the morning train. Guess we 'd better stir up some horses now and chase along, had n't we?"

"Yes, and get a gentle one for me," cautioned Harry. "It's been eight years since I 've sit on the 'urricane deck of a 'orse!"

"That goes for me too," laughed Fairchild.

"And me—I like automobiles better," Anita was twisting her long hair into a braid, to be once more shoved under her cap. Fairchild looked at her with a new sense of proprietorship.

"You 're not going to be warm enough!"

"Oh, yes, I will."

"But—"

"I'll end the argument," boomed old Sheriff Mason, dragging a heavy fur coat from a closet. "If she gets cold in this—I 'm crazy."

There was little chance. In fact, the only difficulty was to find the girl herself, once she and the great coat were on the back of a saddle horse. The start was made. Slowly the five figures circled the hotel and into the alley, to follow the tracks in the snow to a barn far at the edge of town. They looked within. A horse and saddle were missing, and the tracks in the snow pointed the way they had gone. There was nothing necessary but to follow.

A detour, then the tracks led the way to the Ohadi road, and behind them came the pursuers, heads down against the wind, horses snorting and coughing as they forced their way through the big drifts, each following one another for the protection it afforded. A long, silent, cold-gripped two hours,—then finally the lights of Ohadi.

But