“What did I tell yez?” Reilly turned savagely to the other disaffected members of the gang. “Didn't I tell yez he was selling us out?”
Somehow Leroy's revolver seemed to jump to his hand without a motion on his part. It lay loosely in his limp fingers, unaimed and undirected.
“SAY THAT AGAIN, PLEASE.”
Beneath the velvet of Leroy's voice ran a note more deadly than any threat could have been. It rang a bell for a silence in which the clock of death seemed to tick. But as the seconds fled Reilly's courage oozed away. He dared not accept the invitation to reach for his weapon and try conclusions with this debonair young daredevil. He mumbled a retraction, and flung, with a curse, out of the room.
Leroy slipped the revolver back in his holster and quoted, with a laugh:
“To every coward safety, And afterward his evil hour.”
“What's that?” demanded Neil. “I ain't no coward, even if Jay is. I don't knuckle under to any man. You got a right to ante up with some information. I want to know why you ain't got them papers you promised to bring back with you.”
“And I, too, senor. I desire to know what it means,” added Chaves, his eyes glittering.
“That's the way to chirp, gentlemen. I haven't got them because Forbes blundered on us, and I had to take a pasear awful sudden. But I made an appointment to meet Collins to-morrow.”
“And you think he'll keep it?” scoffed Neil.
“I know he will.”
“You seem to know a heap about him,” was the significant retort.
“Take care, York.”
“I'm not Hardman, cap. I say what I think.
“And you think?” suggested Leroy gently.
“I don't know what to think yet. You're either a fool or a traitor. I ain't quite made up my mind. When I find out you'll ce'tainly hear from me straight. Come on, boys.” And Neil vanished through the door.
An hour later there came a knock at Leroy's door. Neil answered his permission to enter, followed by the other trio of flushed beauties. To the outlaw chief it was at once apparent with what Dutch courage they had been fortifying themselves to some resolve. It was characteristic of him, though he knew on how precarious a thread his life was hanging, that disgust at the foul breaths with which they were polluting the atmosphere was his first dominant emotion.
“I wish, Lieutenant Chaves, next time you emigrate you'd bring another brand of poison out to the boys. I can't go this stuff. Just remember that, will you?”
The outlaw chief's hard eye ran over the rebels and read them like a primer They had come to depose him certainly, to kill him perhaps. Though this last he doubted. It wouldn't be like Neil to plan his murder, and it wouldn't be like the others to give him warning and meet him in the open. Warily he stood behind the table, watching their awkward embarrassment with easy assurance. Carefully he placed face downward on the table the Villon he had been reading, but he did it without lifting his eyes from them.
“You have business with me, I presume.”
“That's what we have,” cried Reilly valiantly, from the rear.
“Then suppose we come to it and get the room aired as soon as possible,” Leroy said tartly.
“You're such a slap-up dude you'd ought to be a hotel clerk, cap. You're sure wasted out here. So we boys got together and held a little election. Consequence is, we—fact is, we—”
Neil stuck, but Reilly came to his rescue.
“We elected York captain of this outfit.”
“To fill the vacancy created by my resignation. Poor York! You're the sacrifice, are you? On the whole, I think you fellows have made a wise choice. York's game, and he won't squeal on you, which is more than I could say of Reilly, or the play actor, or the gentlemen from Chihuahua. But you want to watch out for a knife in the dark, York. 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,' you know.”
“We didn't come here to listen to a speech, cap, but to notify you we was dissatisfied, and wouldn't have you run the outfit any longer,” explained Neil.
“In that event, having heard the report of the committee, if there's no further new business, I declare this meeting adjourned sine die. Kindly remove the perfume tubs, Captain Neil, at your earliest convenience.”
The quartette retreated ignominiously. They had come prepared to gloat over Leroy's discomfiture, and he had mocked them with that insolent ease of his that set their teeth in helpless rage.
But the deposed chief knew they had not struck their last blow. Throughout the night he could hear the low-voiced murmur of their plottings, and he knew that if the liquor held out long enough there would be sudden death at Hidden Valley before twenty-four hours were up. He looked carefully to his rifle and his revolvers, testing several shells to make sure they had not been tampered with in his absence. After he had made all necessary preparations, he drew the blinds of his window and moved his easy-chair from its customary place beside the fire. Also he was careful not to sit where an shadow would betray his position. Then back he went to his Villon, a revolver lying on the table within reach.
But the night passed without mishap, and with morning he ventured forth to his meeting with the sheriff. He might have slipped out from the back door of his cabin and gained the canyon, by circling unobserved, up the draw and over the hogback, but he would not show by these precautions any fear of the cutthroats with whom he had to deal. As was his scrupulous custom, he shaved and took his morning bath before appearing outdoors. In all Arizona no trimmer, more graceful figure of jaunty recklessness could be seen than this one stepping lightly forth to knock at the bunk-house door behind which he suspected were at least two men determined on his death by treachery.
Neil came to the door in answer to his knock and within he could see the villainous faces at bloodshot eyes of two of the others peering at him.
“Good mo'ning, Captain Neil. I'm on my way to keep that appointment I mentioned last night I'd ce'tainly be glad to have you go along. Nothing like being on the spot to prevent double-crossing.”
“I'm with you in the fling of a cow's tail. Come on, boys.”
“I think not. You and I will go alone.”
“Just as you say. Reilly, I guess you better saddle Two-step and the Lazy B roan.”
“I ain't saddling ponies for Mr. Leroy,” returned Reilly, with thick defiance.
Neil was across the room in two strides. “When I tell you to do a thing, jump! Get a move on and saddle those broncs.”
“I don't know as—”
“Vamos!”
Reilly sullenly slouched out.
“I see you made them jump,” commented the former captain audibly, seating himself comfortably on a rock. “It's the only way you'll get along with them. See that they come to time or pump lead into them. You'll find there's no middle way.”
Neil and Leroy had hardly passed beyond the rock-slide before the others, suspicion awake in their sodden brains, dodged after them on foot. For three miles they followed the broncos as the latter picked their way up the steep trail that led to the Dalriada Mine.
“If Mr. Collins is here, he's lying almighty low,” exclaimed Neil, as he swung from his pony at the foot of the bluff from the brow of which the gray dump of the mine straggled down like a Titan's beard.
“Right you are, Mr. Neil.”
York whirled, revolver in hand, but the man who had risen from behind the big boulder beside the trail was resting both hands on the rock before him.
“You're alone,