Frank Merriwell's Backers: or, The Pride of His Friends

CHAPTER XXXII.
DEAD OR LIVING

Frank's feelings on listening to this talk, the greater part of which he was able to hear very well, may be imagined far more easily than described. At last he was in full possession of the facts relating to the abduction of June Arlington, and a greater piece of villainy had never come to his knowledge. From the first he had regarded Eliot Dodge as a scoundrel of the worst type; but he had not gaged the man as one who would enter into such a desperate scheme as this.

Merry had also learned that Ben File was dead, and, therefore, he was released from his promise to bring back Cimarron Bill.

Immediately his one thought turned to June and to the devising of some method of discovering her whereabouts and going to her rescue. Later he could think of other things; but not until this great object had been accomplished.

The voices of the men ran on in the little room, though words grew fewer, and Merry knew the demand for the ransom money was being written.

For a moment he thought of the satisfaction it would give him to expose the rascally lawyer and bring him to the end of his tether. Then he saw Handsome Charley speaking quietly in the ear of a man, afterward passing on to another and yet another. There was something in Charley's manner that seemed very significant.

"There's trouble brewing for Bill," Frank decided. "It's coming as sure as fate."

He felt for his own weapons, making sure they were where he could draw them and use them without delay; but Frank did not propose to become involved in the affair unless circumstances made it impossible to keep out.

Again he listened at the crack in the partition, hoping that some word passed between Dodge and Bill would tell him where June was hidden. In this Merry was disappointed. True, Dodge asked about the girl and Bill assured him that she was perfectly safe and unharmed, but that was all.

The dance was over and another was in progress when Bill and Eliot Dodge came from that back room. Handsome Charley and his satellites were watching these two men. But they were permitted to pass to the door, where Bill shook hands with Dodge, who hurried forth into the night.

"How is that, Bill?" demanded Charley, hastily approaching. "I opine you agreed that you an' your friend would sure drink with me arter your business was over. I notices that he has hiked."

Bill turned.

"Count me in, Charley," he said easily. "Mr. – ah – Lewis, he didn't hev time. My neck is again a whole lot dry, and I'll be pleased to irrigate with you."

So they stood up to the bar, and Frank saw a number of men drawing near from different directions, all coming forward quietly.

Charley openly expressed his disapproval of the conduct of Eliot Dodge.

"He certain was most onmannerly, Bill," he declared.

"Forget it," advised Bill curtly.

And this was not at all agreeable to the other.

"Mebbe I can't do that none," said Charley; "but I'll tell ye, Bill, what will help a whole lot."

"Go ahead," said Bill.

"You has right up-stairs in this same ranch a young lady what is handsome enough to make any gent fergit a wrong, an' her I most mightily wants to bring down yere."

Frank heard the words distinctly, and they gave him a start. Handsome Charley was speaking of June Arlington; there could be no doubt of that. He said June was "up-stairs in that same ranch." At last Frank had received the clue he was seeking.

More than Merry saw trouble was brewing between Charley and Bill, and now the attention of almost every person in the room was directed toward them.

Bill's face grew grim, and again his eyes narrowed and glittered.

"See yere," he said harshly, "I allows we has settled the p'int in regard to her, an' so you lets it drop, Charley."

Frank knew that pistols would be out in a few seconds more. He did not wait for the men to draw and begin to shoot.

There was no flight of stairs in the room where the dance was taking place, and, therefore, he immediately decided that the stairs might be found in the back room, where the interview between Bill and Eliot Dodge had taken place. The door leading into that room was closed, but Frank slipped quickly to it, and it readily opened before his hand.

He found himself in a bare room, having but little furniture, a table, a bed, some chairs, and, as Frank had believed likely, a steep flight of stairs ran railless up one side of the room, disappearing at a dark landing above.

In a twinkling Merry was bounding lightly up those stairs, the sounds of loud and angry voices coming from the dance-room, where the music and dancing had now stopped.

Frank knew that whatever he did must be done in a hurry, for, allowing that in the trouble in the dance-room, Handsome Charley should come forth triumphant it was likely that June would be sought by some of those ruffians.

The thought of this spurred Merry on. He pictured to himself the terror of the poor girl seized by those men and dragged into the presence of the mob below.

"They shall not touch her!" he muttered. "If I can reach her, they shall not touch her!"

Then he found himself, in the gloom of the landing, against a heavy door. He sought to open it, but it was locked.

From below came the sound of a shot. Then there were shouts and other shots.

"The devils have broken loose!" exclaimed Merry, and he wondered how it fared with Bill.

In vain he felt for the fastenings of the door. His heart smote him with the fear that it would withstand any attack he might direct upon it.

Then he found a match and struck it. The light showed him something that made his heart leap with satisfaction.

Across the face of the door, lying in iron slots, was an iron bar that held it fast.

The match was dropped in a twinkling, and Frank's fingers lifted the bar from the slots and its socket. Then he easily opened the door.

At that instant it seemed as if pandemonium broke loose below. There was a perfect fusillade of shots, hoarse shouts from men and wild shrieks from women. There was likewise a terrible crash, as if some part of the building had been ripped down.

"June!" called Frank. "June! June!"

The room in which he found himself was dark and silent.

"June! June! I am a friend! Answer me!"

Still silence.

Again he brought forth and struck a match. It flared up in his fingers, and he lifted it above his head, looking all around.

Stretched on the floor in a huddled heap in one corner was the body of a girl. The glance he had obtained convinced him that it was June beyond question.

Frank sprang forward, again speaking her name and assuring her that he was a friend.

In the darkness he found her with his hands. She did not move when he touched her, and his fingers ran to her face. It was cold as marble to the touch, and a great horror filled his soul.

"Merciful God!" he groaned, starting back a little. "They have killed her. The devils!"

The shock was so great that he remained quite still on his knees for a few moments.

He was aroused by the sound of heavy feet upon the stairs.

Frank sprang up and dashed across the room to the door.

The door leading into the dance-room had been left wide open below. He saw that a number of men had entered the back room, and already two or three were on the stairs. Handsome Charley was at their head.

Frank was trapped!

At once he realized that Cimarron Bill was, beyond a doubt, lying in a pool of his own blood in the dance-room. At last the most desperate and dangerous man-killer of the Southwest had met his master.

Merry had little time, however, to think of anything like this. His own life was in the utmost peril. He drew his revolver, and, with the utmost coolness, put a bullet through Handsome Charley's right shoulder.

With a cry, the man fell back into the arms of the one directly behind him, and that fellow was upset, so that all were swept in a great crash to the foot of the stairs.

"Perhaps that will hold you for a while!" muttered Frank, as he picked up the iron bar and promptly closed the door at the head of the stairs.

He had seized the bar because he thought it might be a good weapon of defense in case his revolvers should be emptied and he remained in condition to fight. Now he thought of something else, and decided that the bar might do for a prop at the door.

"There ought to be some other way out of this room," he muttered. "Isn't there even a window?"

Again he struck a match, looking around with the aid of its light.

At the end of the long room in which he found himself he fancied he must find a window. Toward this end of the room he hurried, and another match disclosed to him a window that was hidden by heavy planking. Plainly the planks had been spiked over the window after it was decided to hold June a prisoner in that room.

Down dropped the match, and instantly Frank attacked the planks with the iron bar.

Fortune must have favored him, for had it been light he could not have been more successful. Every stroke was effective, and he began ripping off the planks.

There was wild excitement below, and Merry prayed for a little time. His heart was filled with a hope that Handsome Charley's fate would be a warning to others, so they would not be eager to rush up the stairs to the door.

In just about one minute he had torn the planks from the window.

Once more he heard men ascending the stairs. Instantly he dashed across the floor, finding the door in the darkness.

"Halt!" he cried savagely, from behind the closed door. "Halt, or I fire!"

Then he sought to prop the door with the iron bar, pressing it down in such a position that it might hold for some moments against an ordinary attack upon it.

"I'll shoot the first man who tries to open this door!" he shouted.

But he did not remain there to await an effort to open the door. Instead he quickly found the girl in the corner, lifted her limp body, and sought the window once more.

Reaching the window, Frank promptly kicked out sash and glass with two movements of his foot.

Bang! bang! bang! – sounded heavy blows on the door behind him, but the iron bar was holding well.

Merry swung his leg over the window-ledge. Desperate as he was, he meant to venture a leap from the window to the ground with the girl in his arms.

But just then, pausing to look down, he was amazed and delighted to see below him his four friends, who were on the point of entering the building, led by Bart Hodge. Instantly Frank hailed them.

"Catch her!" he cried, swinging the girl out over the window-ledge, so that they could see her below.

Immediately Bart and Ephraim extended their arms and stood ready.

"Let her come!" shouted Hodge.

Frank dropped the girl, and the two young men clutched at her as she fell directly into their arms.

At that moment the door behind Merry flew open with a slam and the ruffians came bursting into the room.

One of them held a lighted lamp.

The fellow in advance saw Frank in the window and flung up his hand. There was a loud report and a burst of smoke. When the smoke cleared the window was empty, Frank having disappeared.

"Nailed him!" shouted the ruffian who had fired. "Nailed him for sure!"

He rushed forward to the window and looked down, expecting to discover the body of his victim stretched on the ground. But in this he was disappointed, for neither Frank nor his friends were beneath the window. Into the darkness of the crooked street some dusky figures were vanishing.

Frank had leaped from the window, being untouched by the bullet that fanned his cheek in passing. He struck on his feet, but plunged forward on his hands and knees. In a moment he was jerked erect by some one who observed:

"Methinks your parachute must be out of order. You descended with exceeding great violence. What think you if we make haste to depart?"

"Jack!" exclaimed Frank.

"The same," was the assurance, as Ready clutched his arm and started him on the run. "Dear me! I know this strenuous life will yet bring me to my death!"

Ahead of them Frank saw some figures moving hastily away.

"The girl – "

"They've got her," assured Jack. "Old Joe is with them. We'll talk it over later."

So they ran, well knowing the whole of Sunk Hole would be looking for them within thirty minutes. It did not take them long to come up with Bart, Ephraim, and old Joe.

Behind them there sounded shouts and commands, and it was well the whole of Sunk Hole had been at the dance, else the place must have been aroused so that they would have run into some of its inhabitants. Here and there amid the buildings they dodged until they arrived at the edge of the collection and struck out for the side of the valley, Crowfoot leading.

It was necessary to trust everything to the old Indian. Without him they could not have known with any certainty that they were taking the proper course to enable them to get out of the valley.

The girl was passed from one to another as they ran. They did not waste their breath in words.

The old Indian ran with an ease that was astonishing, considering his years.

Looking back, they could see torches moving swiftly here and there through the town, telling that the search for them was being carried on.

Soon they came to a steep gully that led upward, and the ascent was very difficult, even at first. It grew more and more difficult as they ascended, and it became necessary for them to work slowly in the darkness, the girl being passed upward from time to time, as one after another took turns at creeping ahead.

Joe did not seem to have much trouble, but he did not bother with the girl. Finally he said:

"Here come bad palefaces! Make some big hurry!"

It was true that a party of men were running toward the gully. Their torches danced and flared, showing them with some distinctness.

To the right and left in other parts of the valley were clusters of torches.

"Heap try to stop us," exclaimed Crowfoot. "One way to go up there, 'nother way down there, this be 'nother way. They know all. That how um come here so fast."

By the time the men with the torches reached the foot of the gully Frank and his comrades were so far above that they were not betrayed by the torchlight. But one of the ruffians bade the others listen, and at that very moment Ephraim Gallup dislodged a stone that went clattering and rattling downward with a great racket.

Instantly a wild yell broke from the lips of the ruffians below.

"Here they are!" they shouted. "They're up here!"

Then one of them began to blaze away with his pistols, and the bullets whistled and zipped unpleasantly close to the party above.

Bart Hodge stooped and found some rocks as large as ducks' eggs in the hollow of the gully. He knew it would expose their position if he should answer the fire with his revolvers, and so he simply hurled those rocks with all the accuracy and skill that had made him noted on the baseball diamond as a wonderful thrower to second base.

The first rock struck a fellow on the wrist and broke it. The third hit another man on the shoulder, and not many of the six Bart threw failed to take effect.

Astonishing though it seemed, this method of retorting to the shooting proved most effective, and the ruffians scattered to get out of the way, swearing horribly.

The fugitives continued till the top of the gully was reached and they struck something like a natural path that soon took them where they could no longer see the valley nor hear their enemies.

Knowing they would be followed still farther, they halted not for a moment until their horses were reached. Then they paused only to make ready and swing into the saddle.

Even as June was passed up to Frank she sighed and seemed to come a little to herself. And as they rode into the dusk of the night she recovered consciousness, the cool breeze fanning her face. She wondered and shuddered until she heard the voice of Frank Merriwell reassuring her, and then she was certain that it was all a dream. In her prison room she had listened with shaking soul to the sounds from below, she had crept to the barred door and heard Cimarron Bill and Eliot Dodge talking below, and the horror of knowing the rascally lawyer was in the plot that had brought about her abduction and detention in that den had been a fearful shock to her. When the quarreling and the shooting began, she was filled with mortal dread. She heard some one on the stairs and fumbling at her door, and then, kneeling in a corner of the room, all the world slipped away from her, and she remembered nothing more until she awoke in the arms of her brave rescuer, Frank Merriwell.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE RETURN TO HOLBROOK

Haggard from worriment and need of sleep, her face seeming drawn and old, her eyes feeling like coals in her throbbing head, Mrs. Arlington welcomed Eliot Dodge, who came into the room, looking dejected yet seeming to appear hopeful.

"June! June, my child?" cried the tortured mother. "Have you no news of her?"

"Nothing but – this," said Dodge, pulling out an unsealed letter.

Then he briefly told of being held up by three ruffians, who had given him the letter.

Mrs. Arlington read it, and fell half-fainting on the couch, while Dodge bent over her with protestations of sympathy.

"My poor girl!" gasped the miserable woman. "And she is in the power of such monsters! The ransom money must be paid! She must be saved at once!"

"Is there no way to avoid paying the money?" said Dodge. "Is it not possible she may be saved in some other manner?"

"I think it is," said a clear voice, as the door was thrust open and Frank Merriwell, covered from head to heel with the dust of the desert, escorted the rescued girl into the room. "Mrs. Arlington, I have brought you your daughter."

With a scream of joy, Mrs. Arlington leaped up and June ran into her arms.

Eliot Dodge seemed to turn green. He stood and stared at the girl in a sort of blank stupor, failing to observe that just behind Frank Merriwell, who still wore the clothes taken from the intoxicated Mexican, there was the officer newly appointed to fill the place left vacant by the death of Ben File.

"June! June! June!" cried Mrs. Arlington, her face flushed with gladness. "Is it you, my poor girl! I can scarcely believe it! How does it happen? Tell me how you come to be here!"

"I am here, mother, because I was rescued from those horrible ruffians by that brave gentleman whom you have so greatly wronged, Frank Merriwell. He risked his life for me. I will tell you all, but first – first I must tell you that you have trusted a snake. I mean that monster there!"

She pointed her finger at Dodge, who started and looked startled, but pretended the utmost amazement.

"He is the villain who planned it all!" declared June. "I know, for I heard them talk it over. But he shall not escape!"

"I hardly think so," said Frank. "Officer, he is a desperate man. Be careful of him."

"This is an outrage!" declared Dodge, as the new city marshal grasped him. "I'll not permit it! I – "

Frank clutched him on the other side, and, a moment later, the officer had ironed his prisoner.

Mrs. Arlington would have interfered, but Merry declared he had sworn out the warrant for Dodge's arrest, and she saw it was useless.

"Madam," said Frank, "I will leave you alone with your daughter. When she has told you all, you will be ready, I am confident, to prosecute Eliot Dodge. I shall then withdraw my charge and permit you to have him arrested. In the meantime I bid you good day. I shall be in this hotel for the next day or so."

He bowed gracefully to both Mrs. Arlington and June and left the room.

When there was plenty of time, Frank and his friends talked it over. He told them of his experience in the dance-room, and they told him how they had lingered near, ready to rush to his rescue. When they heard the sounds of the quarrel between Cimarron Bill and Handsome Charley they hurried to the door, but there they halted, for they looked in and saw nothing of Frank. Thus it was that they beheld the shooting of Bill as he tried to draw on Charley. He was shot down from behind by Charley's tools, and they fired several bullets into his body as he lay weltering on the floor.

Frank shook his head as he heard this account of Bill's end.

"He was a bad man, a very bad man," he said; "but somehow I'm sorry that he met his end that way. They had to shoot him from the rear. Not one of them dared pull on him face to face."

Frank received a brief letter from Mrs. Arlington, thanking him for what he had done for her daughter. Not one word did she say of her own malevolence toward him, not one word of the manner in which she had wronged him. And the doctor, who brought the letter, told Merry that she was in such a precarious condition that she could not write more, nor could she be seen by any one but June.

Frank smiled grimly, disdainfully, over the letter, then deliberately tore it into shreds.

But he had proved his manhood, and June Arlington, for all of her mother, found time to see him a few moments before he left town. After that brief time with June he rode light-heartedly away, his friends galloping at his side and listening to the cowboy song that came from his lips.