CHAPTER VI
HEELS FOR IT
With a sudden, low command to Sassoon to check his horse, and without a movement that could be detected in the dawn ten yards away, de Spain with the thumb and finger of his right hand lifted his revolver from its scabbard, shifted his lines from his left hand to his right, rode closer to Sassoon and pressed the muzzle of the gun to his prisoner’s side. “You’ve got one chance yet, Shike, to ride out of here alive,” he said composedly. “You know I am a rustler–cousin of John Rebstock’s. My name is ‘Frenchy’; I belong in Williams Cache. I rode in last night from Thief River, and you are riding out with me to start me on to the Sleepy Cat trail. If you can remember that much–”
While he spoke to Sassoon his eyes were fixed on the rider halted in their path. De Spain stopped half-way through his sentence. The figure revealed in the half-light puzzled him at first. Then it confused and startled him. He saw it was not a man at all, but a woman–and a woman than whom he would rather have seen six men. It was Nan Morgan.
With her head never more decisively set under her mannish hat, her waist never more attractively outlined in slenderness, she silently faced de Spain in the morning gray. His face reflected his chagrined perplexity. The whole fabric of his slender plot seemed to go to pieces at the sight of her. At the mere appearance of his frail and motionless foe a feeling of awkward helplessness dissolved his easy confidence. He now reversed every move he had so carefully made with his hands and, resentfully eying Nan, rode in somewhat behind Sassoon, doing nothing further than to pull his kerchief up about his neck, and wondering what would be likely to happen before the next three minutes were up. Beyond that flash the future held no interest for him–his wits had temporarily failed.
Of one thing he felt assured, that it was in no wise up to him to speak or do first. He could already see Nan’s eyes. They were bent keenly first on him, then on his companion, and again on him. De Spain kept his face down as much as he dared, and his hat had been pulled well over it from the beginning. She waited so long before accosting the two men that de Spain, who was ready to hope any improbable thing, began to hope she might let them pass unchallenged. He had resolved, if she did not speak to push past without even looking at her. They were now almost abreast. His fine resolution went smash overboard. The very instinctive knowledge that her eyes were bent on his made him steal a glance at her in spite of himself. The next instant he was shamefacedly touching his hat. Though nothing was lost on her, Nan professed not to see the greeting. He even continued to dream she did not recognize him. Her eyes, in fact, were directed toward Sassoon, and when she spoke her tone was dry with suspicion.
“Wait a moment, Sassoon. Where are you going?” she demanded. Sassoon hitched with one hand at his trousers band. He inclined his head sulkily toward his companion. “Starting a man on the trail for Sleepy Cat.”
“Stop,” she exclaimed sharply, for de Spain, pushing his own horse ahead, had managed without being observed, to kick Sassoon’s horse in the flank, and the two were passing. Sassoon at the resolute summons stopped. De Spain could do no less; both men, halting, faced their suspicious inquisitor. She scrutinized de Spain keenly. “What is this man doing in the Gap?”
“He come up from Thief River last night,” answered Sassoon monotonously.
“What is he doing here with you?” persisted Nan.
“He’s a cousin of John Rebstock’s from Williams Cache,” continued Sassoon. The yarn would have sounded decently well in the circumstances for which it was intended, but in the searching gaze of the eyes now confronting and clearly recognizing him, it sounded so grotesque that de Spain would fully as lief have been sitting between his horse’s legs as astride his back.
“That’s not true, Sassoon,” said his relentless questioner. Her tone and the expression of her face boded no friendliness for either of the two she had intercepted.
De Spain had recovered his wits. “You’re right,” he interposed without an instant’s hesitation. “It isn’t true. But that’s not his fault; he is under arrest, and is telling you what I told him to tell you. I came in here this morning to take Sassoon to Sleepy Cat. He is a prisoner, wanted for cutting up one of our stage-guards.”
Nan, coldly sceptical, eyed de Spain. “And do you try to tell me”–she pointed to Sassoon’s unbound hands–“that he is riding out of here, a free man, to go to jail?”
“I do tell you exactly that. He is my prisoner–”
“I don’t believe either of you,” declared Nan scornfully. “You are planning something underhand together.”
De Spain laughed coolly. “We’ve planned that much together, but not, I assure you, with his consent.”
“I don’t believe your stories at all,” she declared firmly.
De Spain flushed. The irritation and the serious danger bore in on him. “If you don’t believe me it’s not my fault,” he retorted. “I’ve told you the truth. Ride on, Sassoon.”
He spoke angrily, but this in no wise daunted Nan. She wheeled her horse directly in front of them. “Don’t you stir, Sassoon,” she commanded, “until I call Uncle Duke.”
De Spain spurred straight at her; their horses collided, and his knee touched hers in the saddle. “I’m going to take this man out of here,” he announced in a tone she never had heard before from a man. “I’ve no time to talk. Go call your uncle if you like. We must pass.”
“You shan’t pass a step!”
With the quick words of defiance the two glared at each other. De Spain was taken aback. He had expected no more than a war of words–a few screams at the most. Nan’s face turned white, but there was no symptom even of a whimper. He noticed her quick breathing, and felt, instinctively, the restrained gesture of her right hand as it started back to her side. The move steadied him. “One question,” he said bluntly, “are you armed?”
She hated even to answer, and met his searching gaze resentfully, but something in his tone and manner wrung a reply. “I can defend myself,” she exclaimed angrily.
De Spain raised his right hand from his thigh to the pommel of his saddle. The slight gesture was eloquent of his surrender of the issue of force. “I can’t go into a shooting-match with you about this cur. If you call your uncle there will be bloodshed–unless you drop me off my horse right here and now before he appears. All I ask you is this: Is this kind of a cutthroat worth that? If you shoot me, my whole posse from Sleepy Cat is right below us in the aspens. Some of your own people will be killed in a general fight. If you want to shoot me, shoot–you can have the match all to yourself. If you don’t, let us go by. And if I’ve told you one word that isn’t true, call me back to this spot any time you like, and I’ll come at your call, and answer for it.”
His words and his manner confounded her for a moment. She could not at once make an answer, for she could not decide what to say. Then, of a sudden, she was robbed of her chance to answer. From down the trail came a yell like a shot. The clatter of hoofs rang out, and men on horses dashed from the entrance of the Gap toward them. De Spain could not make them out distinctly, but he knew Lefever’s yell, and pointed. “There they are,” he exclaimed hurriedly. “There is the whole posse. They are coming!” A shot, followed closely by a second, rang out from below. “Go,” he cried to Nan. “There’ll be shooting here that I can’t stop!” He slapped Sassoon’s pony viciously with his hand, yelled loud in answer to Lefever, and before the startled girl could collect herself, de Spain, crouching in his saddle, as a fusillade cracked from Lefever’s and Scott’s revolvers, urged Sassoon’s horse around Nan’s, kicked it violently, spurred past her himself, and was away. White with consternation and anger, she steadied herself and looked after the fleeing pair. Then whirling in her saddle, she ran her pony back to the ranch-house to give the alarm.
Yelling like half a dozen men, Lefever and Scott, as de Spain and his prisoner dashed toward them, separated, let the pair pass, and spurred in behind to cover the flight and confront any pursuers. None at the moment threatened, but no words were exchanged until the whole party, riding fast, were well past El Capitan and out of the Gap. For some unexpressed reason–so strong is the influence of tradition and reputation–no one of the three coveted a close encounter with the Morgans within its walls.
“It’s the long heels for it now, boys,” cried de Spain. His companions closed up again.
“Save your horses,” cautioned Scott, between strides. “It’s a good ways home.”
“Make for Calabasas,” shouted Lefever.
“No,” yelled Scott. “They would stand us a siege at Calabasas. While the trail is open make for the railroad.”
A great globe of dazzling gold burst into the east above the distant hills. But the glory of the sunrise called forth no admiration from the three men hurrying a fourth urgently along the Sleepy Cat trail. Between breaths de Spain explained his awkward meeting with Nan, and of the strait he was in when Lefever’s strong lungs enabled him to get away unscratched. But for a gunman a narrow squeak is as good as a wide one, and no one found fault with the situation. They had the advantage–the only question was whether they could hold it. And while they continued to cast anxious glances behind, Scott’s Indian eyes first perceived signs on the horizon that marked their pursuit.
“No matter,” declared Lefever. “This is a little fast for a fat man, anyway.” He was not averse, either, to the prospect of a long-range exchange with the fighting mountaineers. All drew rein a little. “Suppose I cover the rear till we see what this is,” suggested Lefever, limbering up as the other two looked back. “Push ahead with Sassoon. These fellows won’t follow far.”
“Don’t be sure about that,” muttered Scott. “Duke and Gale have got the best horses in the mountains, and they’d rather fight than eat. There they come now.”
Dashing across a plain they themselves had just crossed, they could see three horsemen in hot chase. The pursued men rode carefully, and, scanning the ground everywhere ahead and behind, de Spain, Scott, and Lefever awaited the moment when their pursuers should show their hand. Scott was on the west of the line, and nearest the enemy.
“Who are they, Bob?” yelled Lefever.
Scott scrutinized the pursuers carefully. “One,” he called back, “that big fellow on the right, is Deaf Sandusky, sure. Harvey Logan, likely, the middle man. The other I can’t make out. Look!” he exclaimed, pointing to the foot-hills on their distant left. Two men, riding out almost abreast of them, were running their horses for a small canyon through which the trail led two miles ahead. “Some riding,” cried Scott, watching the newcomers. “That farther man must be Gale Morgan. They are trying for the greasewood canyon, to cut us off.”
“We can’t stand for that,” decided de Spain, surveying the ground around them. “There’s not so much as a sage-brush here for cover.”
Lefever pointed to his right; at some distance a dark, weather-beaten cone rose above the yellow desert. “Let’s make a stand in the lava beds,” he cried.
De Spain hesitated. “It takes us the wrong way.” He pointed ahead. “Give them a run for that canyon, boys.”
Urging their horses, the Sleepy Cat men rode at utmost speed to beat the flanking party to the trail gateway. For a few minutes it looked an even break between pursuers and pursued. The two men in the foot-hills now had a long angle to overcome, but they were doing a better pace than those of the Gap party behind, and half-way to the canyon it looked like a neck-and-neck heat for the narrow entrance. Lefever complained of the effort of keeping up, and at length reined in his horse. “Drop me here on the alkali, boys,” he cried to the others. “I’ll hold this end while you get through the canyon.”
“No,” declared de Spain, checking his pace. “If one stays, all stay. This is as good a time as any to find out what these fellows mean.”
“But not a very good place,” commented Scott, as they slowed, looking for a depression.
“It’s as good for us as it is for them,” returned de Spain abruptly. “We’ll try it right here.”
He swung out of his saddle, Lefever and Scott after an instant’s reconnoissance following. Sassoon they dismounted. Scott lashed his wrists together, while de Spain and Lefever unslung their carbines, got their horses down, and, facing the west and south, spread themselves on the ground.
The men behind lost nothing of the defensive movement of the pursued party, and slowed up in turn. For the moment the flankers were out of sight, but they must soon appear on the crest of a rise between them and the canyon. Lefever was first down and first ready with his rifle to cover the men behind. These now spread out and came on, as if for a rush.
Lefever, picking Logan, the foremost, sent a warning shot in front of him. De Spain fired almost at the same moment toward the big man making a détour to the right of the leader. The two bullets puffed in the distant alkali, and the two horsemen, sharply admonished, swerved backward precipitately. After a momentary circling indecision, the three rode closer together for a conference, dismounted, and opened a return fire on the little party lying to.
The strategy of their halt and their firing was not hard to penetrate. The men from the foot-hills were still riding for the canyon. No views were exchanged among Sassoon’s captors, but all understood that this move must be stopped. Lefever and Scott, without words, merely left the problem to de Spain as the leader. He lay on the right of the line as they faced south, and this brought him nearest to the riders out of the foot-hills. Taking advantage of a lull in the firing, he pulled his horse around between himself and the attacking party, and in such a position that he could command with his rifle the fast-moving riders to the west.
Something of a predicament confronted him. He was loath to take a human life in the effort to get a cutthroat jailed, and hated even to cripple a beast for it, but the two men must be stopped. Nor was it easy to pick up the range offhand, but meaning that the Morgans, if they were Morgans, should understand how a rush would be met, he sent one shot after another, short, beyond, and ahead of the horsemen, to check them, and to feel the way for closer shooting if it should be necessary. The two dashed on undaunted. De Spain perceived that warnings were wasted. He lowered his sights, and, waiting his chance as the leader of the foot-hill pursuers rode into a favorable range, he fired for his horse’s head. The beast jumped convulsively and pitched forward, head down in a half somersault, throwing his rider violently to the ground. Scott and Lefever yelled loudly.
Out of the cloud of dust the man scrambled to his feet, looked coolly around, and brushed the alkali disgustedly from his eyes just as a second bullet from de Spain tore up the earth a few feet to one side of him. He jumped like a rabbit at this summons, and did not even make a further pretense at composure. Grabbing his hat from the ground, he ran like mad toward the hills. Meantime his mounted companion had turned about. De Spain sprang to his feet, jerked up his horse and cried: “Now for the canyon!” Pushing Sassoon into the saddle and profiting by the confusion, the railroad men rode hard for their refuge, and reached it without more molestation than an occasional shot from their distant pursuers on the main trail. De Spain and his scouts now felt assured of their escape. The foot-hills contingent was left far behind, and, though their remaining pursuers rode in at times with a show of rushing, the chase was a stern one, and could be checked whenever necessary. Halting at times in this way to breathe their horses, or to hold off the rear pursuit, de Spain with his two companions and their prisoner rode into Sleepy Cat, locked Sassoon up, and went to the Mountain House for breakfast.
CHAPTER VII
MAINTAINING A REPUTATION
The abduction of Sassoon, which signalized de Spain’s entry into the stage-line management, created a sensation akin to the exploding of a bomb under the range. The whole mountain country, which concentrates, sensibly, on but one topic at a time, talked for a week of nothing else. No such defiance of the traditions of the Morgan rule along the reaches of the Spanish Sinks had been attempted in years–and it was recalled more than once, when de Spain’s feat was discussed at the ranches, on the trails, and in the haunts of gunmen in Calabasas, that no one of those who had ever braved the wrath of the Sink rulers had lived indefinitely to boast of it.
Experienced men, therefore, in the high country–men of that class who, wherever found, are old in the ways of the world, and not promptly moved by new or youthful adventure–dismissed the incident after hearing the details, with the comment or the conclusion that there would hardly be for de Spain more than one additional chapter to the story, and that this would be a short one. The most active Morgans–Gale, Duke, and the easy-going Satterlee–were indeed wrought to the keenest pitch of revengeful anger. No question of the right or wrong of the arrest was discussed–justification was not considered. It was an overwhelmingly insolent invasion–and worst of all, a successful invasion, by one who had nothing but cool impudence, not even a budding reputation to justify his assault on the lifelong prestige of the Gap clan. Gale Morgan strode and rode the streets of Sleepy Cat looking for de Spain, and storming.
De Spain himself, somewhat surprised at the storm he had kicked up, heeded the counsel of Scott, and while the acute stage of the resentment raged along the trail he ran down for a few days to Medicine Bend to buy horses. Both Gale and Duke Morgan proclaimed, in certain public places in Sleepy Cat, their intention of shooting de Spain on sight; and as a climax to all the excitement of the week following his capture, the slippery Sassoon broke jail and, after a brief interval, appeared at large in Calabasas.
This feat of the Morgan satellite made a loud laugh at de Spain’s expense. It mitigated somewhat the humiliation of Sassoon’s friends, but it in no wise diminished their expressed resolve to punish de Spain’s invasion. Lefever, who as the mixer among the stage men, kept close to the drift of public sentiment, decided after de Spain’s return to Sleepy Cat that the stage-line authorities had gained nothing by Sassoon’s capture.
“We ought to have thought of it before, Henry,” he said frankly one night in Jeffries’s office, “but we didn’t think.”
“Meaning just what, John?” demanded de Spain without real interest.
“Meaning, that in this country you can’t begin on a play like pulling Sassoon out from under his friends’ noses without keeping up the pace–without a second and third act. You dragged Sassoon by his hair out of the Gap; good. You surprised everybody; good. But you can’t very well stop at that, Henry. You have raised hopes, you have led people to invest you with the faint glimmerings of a reputation. I say, the glimmerings, because such a feat by itself doesn’t insure a permanent reputation, Henry. It is, so to say, merely a ‘demand’ reputation–one that men reserve the right to recall at any moment. And the worst of it is, if they ever do recall it, you are worse off than when before they extended the brittle bauble to you.”
“Jingo, John! For a stage blacksmith you are some spieler.” De Spain added an impatient, not to say contumelious exclamation concerning the substance of Lefever’s talk. “I didn’t ask them for a reputation. This man interfered with my guard–in fact, tried to cut his throat, didn’t he?”
“Would have done it if Frank had been an honest man.”
“That is all there is to it, isn’t it? If Sassoon or anybody else gets in the way of the stages, I’ll go after them again–that’s all there is to it, isn’t it?”
Lefever tapped the second finger of one fat hand gently on the table. “Practically; practically all, Henry, yes. You don’t quite understand, but you have the right idea. What I am trying to hammer into your dense cocoanut is, that when a man has, gets, or is given a reputation out in this country, he has got to live up to it.”
“What do you want me to do–back a horse and shoot two guns at once up and down Main Street, cowboy style?”
Lefever kept his patience without difficulty. “No, no. You’ll understand.”
“Scott advised me to run down to Medicine Bend for a few days to let the Morgans cool off.”
“Right. That was the first step. The few days are a thing of the past. I suppose you know,” continued Lefever, in as well-modulated a tone as he could assume to convey information that could not be regarded as wholly cheerful, “that they expect to get you for this Sassoon job.”
De Spain flushed. But the red anger lasted only a moment. “Who are ‘they’?” he asked after a pause.
“Deaf Sandusky, Logan, of course, the Calabasas bunch, and the Morgans.”
De Spain regarded his companion unamiably. “What do they expect I’ll be doing while they are getting me?”
Lefever raised a hand deprecatingly. “Don’t be overconfident, Henry; that’s your danger. I know you can take care of yourself. All I want to do is to get the folks here acquainted with your ability, without taking unnecessary chances. You see, people are not now asking questions of one another; they are asking them of themselves. Who and what is this newcomer–an accident or a genuine arrival? A common squib or a real explosion? Don’t get excited,” he added, in an effort to soothe de Spain’s obvious irritation. “You have the idea, Henry. It’s time to show yourself.”
“I can’t very well do business here without showing myself,” retorted de Spain.
“But it is a thing to be managed,” persisted Lefever. “Now, suppose–since the topic is up–we ‘show’ in Main Street for a while.”
“Suppose we do,” echoed de Spain ungraciously.
“That will crack the début ice. We will call at Harry Tenison’s hotel, and then go to his new rooms–go right to society headquarters first–that’s my theory of doing it. If anybody has any shooting in mind, Tenison’s is a quiet and orderly place. And if a man declines to eat anybody up at Tenison’s, we put him down, Henry, as not ravenously hungry.”
“One man I would like to see is that sheriff, Druel, who let Sassoon get out.”
“Ready to interview him now?”
“I’ve got some telegrams to answer.”
“Those will keep. The Morgans are in town. We’ll start out and find somebody.”
It was wet and sloppy outside, but Lefever was indifferent to the rain, and de Spain thought it would be undignified to complain of it.
When, followed by Lefever, he walked into the lobby of Tenison’s hotel a few moments later the office was empty. Nevertheless, the news of the appearance of Sassoon’s captor spread. The two sauntered into the billiard-hall, which occupied a deep room adjoining the office and opened with large plate-glass windows on Main Street. Every table was in use. A fringe of spectators in the chairs, ostensibly watching the pool games, turned their eyes toward de Spain–those that recognized him distinguishing him by nods and whispers to others.
Among several groups of men standing before the long bar, one party of four near the front end likewise engaged the interest of those keener loafers who were capable of foreseeing situations. These men, Satterlee Morgan, the cattleman; Bull Page, one of his cowboys; Sheriff Druel, and Judge Druel, his brother, had been drinking together. They did not see Lefever and his companion as the two came in through the rear lobby door. But Lefever, on catching sight of them, welcomed his opportunity. Walking directly forward, he laid his hand on Satt Morgan’s shoulder. As the cattleman turned, Lefever, genially grasping his hand, introduced de Spain to each of the party in turn. What followed in the brief interval between the meeting of the six men and the sudden breaking up of the group a few moments later was never clearly known, but a fairly conclusive theory of it was afterward accepted by Sleepy Cat.
Morgan threw the brim of his weather-beaten hat back from his tanned face. He wore a mustache and a chin whisker of that variety designated in the mountains by the most opprobrious of epithets. But his smile, which drew his cheeks into wrinkles all about his long, round nose, was not unfriendly. He looked with open interest from his frank but not overtrustworthy eyes at de Spain. “I heard,” he said in a good-natured, slightly nasal tone, “you made a sunrise call on us one day last week.”
“And I want to say,” returned de Spain, equally amiable, “that if I had had any idea you folks would take it so hard–I mean, as an affront intended to any of you–I never would have gone into the Gap after Sassoon. I just assumed–making a mistake as I now realize–that my scrap would be with Sassoon, not with the Morgans.”
Satt’s face wrinkled into a humorous grin. “You sure kicked up some alkali.”
De Spain nodded candidly. “More than I intended to. And I say–without any intention of impertinence to anybody else–Sassoon is a cur. I supposed when I brought him in here after so much riding, that we had sheriff enough to keep him.” He looked at Druel with such composure that the latter for a moment was nonplussed. Then he discharged a volley of oaths, and demanded what de Spain meant. De Spain did not move. He refused to see the angry sheriff. “That is where I made my second mistake,” he continued, speaking to Morgan and forcing his tone just enough to be heard. Druel, with more hard words, began to abuse the railroad for not paying taxes enough to build a decent jail. De Spain took another tack. He eyed the sheriff calmly as the latter continued to draw away and left de Spain standing somewhat apart from the rest of the group. “Then it may be I am making another mistake, Druel, in blaming you. It may not be your fault.”
“The fault is, you’re fresh,” cried Druel, warming up as de Spain appeared to cool. The line of tipplers backed away from the bar. De Spain, stepping toward the sheriff, raised his hand in a friendly way. “Druel, you’re hurting yourself by your talk. Make me your deputy again sometime,” he concluded, “and I’ll see that Sassoon stays where he is put.”
“I’ll just do that,” cried Druel, with a very strong word, and he raised his hand in turn. “Next time you want him locked up, you can take care of him yourself.”
The sharp crack of a rifle cut off the words; a bullet tore like a lightning-bolt across de Spain’s neck, crashed through a mahogany pilaster back of the bar, and embedded itself in the wall. The shot had been aimed from the street for his head. The noisy room instantly hushed. Spectators sat glued to their chairs. White-faced players leaned motionless against the tables. De Spain alone had acted; all that the bartenders could ever remember after the single rifle-shot was seeing his hand go back as he whirled and shot instantly toward the heavy report. He had whipped out his gun and fired sidewise through the window at the sound.
That was all. The bartenders breathed and looked again. Men were crowding like mad through the back doors. De Spain, at the cigar case, looked intently into the rainy street, lighted from the corner by a dingy lamp. The four men near him had not stirred, but, startled and alert, the right hand of each covered the butt of a revolver. De Spain moved first. While the pool players jammed the back doors to escape, he spoke to, without looking at, the bartender. “What’s the matter with your curtains?” he demanded, sheathing his revolver and pointing with an expletive to the big sheet of plate glass. “Is this the way you build up business for the house?”
Those close enough to the window saw that the bare pane had been cut, just above the middle, by two bullet-holes. Curious men examined both fractures when de Spain and Lefever had left the saloon. The first hole was the larger. It had been made by a high-powered rifle; the second was from a bullet of a Colt’s revolver; it was remarked as a miracle of gun-play that the two were hardly an inch apart.
In the street a few minutes later, de Spain and Lefever encountered Scott, who, with his back hunched up, his cheap black hat pulled well down over his ears, his hands in his trousers pockets and his thin coat collar modestly turned against the drizzling rain, was walking across the parkway from the station.
“Sassoon is in town,” exclaimed Lefever with certainty after he had told the story. He waited for the Indian’s opinion. Scott, looking through the water dripping from the brim of his seasoned derby, gave it in one word. “Was,” he amended with a quiet smile.
“Let’s make sure,” insisted Lefever. “Supposing he might be in town yet, Bob, where is he?”
Scott gazed up the street through the rain lighted by yellow lamps on the obscure corners, and looked down the street toward the black reaches of the river. “If he’s here, you’ll find him in one of two places. Tenison’s–”
“But we’ve just come from Tenison’s,” objected Lefever.
“I mean, across the street, up-stairs; or at Jim Kitchen’s barn. If he was hurried to get away,” added Scott reflectively, “he would slip up-stairs over there as the nearest place to hide; if he had time he would make for the barn, where it would be easy to cache his rifle.”
Lefever took the lapel of the scout’s coat in his hand. “Then you, Bob, go out and see if you can get the whole story. I’ll take the barn. Let Henry go over to Tenison’s and wait at the head of the stairs till we can get back there. It is just around the corner–second floor–a dark hall running back, opposite the double doors that open into an anteroom. Stay there, Henry, till we come. It won’t be long, and if we don’t get track of him you may spot your man yourself.”
De Spain found no difficulty in locating the flight of marble stairs that led to the gambling-rooms. It was the only lighted entrance in the side street. No light shone at the head of the stairs, but a doorway on the left opened into a dimly lighted anteroom and this, in turn, through a large arch, opened on a large room brilliantly lighted by chandeliers–one in the centre and one near each corner. Around three sides of this room were placed the keno layouts, roulette-wheels, faro-tables, and minor gambling devices. Off the casino itself small card-rooms opened.