Ronicky Doone's Treasure (1922) (9 page)

"There you go!" Her father laughed as he spoke. "I will ask you to stop climbing mountains, and you jump over a cliff instead. I don't mean nothing, except for you to watch your ways with Ronicky. You ain't an ordinary girl, Jerry, dear. You got more looks than most. Not that you're the most beautiful I ever seen, but you got a downright pleasing way, and when you smile your whole face lights up a lot."

"Of course all this is absurd," said Jerry. "But if I choose to be courteous to a man who saved your life
both our lives, perhaps
is there anything wrong in it?"

"Courtesy is one thing; it ain't what I'm talking about," said her father gravely.

"And the other thing?"

"Well, Jerry, I'd a pile rather see you dead than get seriously interested in a gent like Ronicky Doone."

She stared at him, almost frightened.

"I see," said he, very grave, "that you've been thinking even more than I suspected."

"Dad," she cried, "this is insufferable. Oblique expressions like these only serve to
"

"Tie them big words up, brand 'em, and keep 'em for the fancy markets," said her father gruffly. "I don't foller 'em easy. Talk plain. I'm a plain man. And I tell you plainly that I love you too much to see you throw away time on one like Doone. For why? Because he's a will-o'-the-wisp, my dear. He's one of these gents who go through life without ever settling down to one thing. He's about what? Twenty-five, I'd take him to be. Well, Jerry, he's crammed ten times more fighting inside his twenty-five years than I've put inside forty-five. A fighting man is like a fighting wolf
they'd better hunt alone!"

"You don't mean," she said, "that he's a gun fighter!"

"Don't I? Well, honey, you got to learn to use your eyes! What does it mean when a gent carries his holster slung away down low on his right hip so's it's just within twitching distance of his finger tips? Ain't that to have it ready for a fast draw? And what does it mean when a gent's left hand is all pale from being in a glove, and when his right hand is brown as a berry?"

"Because the left hand is the bridle hand."

"Because the right hand is the gun hand, Jerry!"

She winced at his surety.

"I'm as sure of it," said her father, blowing a great cloud of smoke from his pipe, "as I am that my name is Hugh Dawn. And watch his hands. Long and slender and nervous. No flesh on 'em. He's never made a living by work. No calluses on those hands. Nothing to keep them from being fast as a flash of light
like the hands of a musician, they look to me. Always doing something with that right hand of his. His left hand is used to hanging steady on the reins, and it's always lying still. But his right hand ain't never still. It's always jumping about and rapping on something, or going here and there and everywhere just for the sake of being under way. I'll tell you why: Because that's the right hand that's saved the life of Ronicky Doone more'n once! It's the hand that's got his trigger finger! It's his fortune!"

"You mean," breathed the girl, "that he's a professional gunman
a murderer?"

"Not a bit! He wouldn't take advantage of his skill with a gun
not to hurt anybody. But I'll wager he's got his man before now. I'll wager that before he dies he'll get a pile more. It's wrote in big letters all over him."

"He'll change," said Jerry Dawn feverishly. "I know that he'll change!"

"Maybe you could do the changing?" said her father.

Her flush was at least a partial admission that she had had the thought.

"Some girls," said he, "are so plumb good that they marry a man for the sake of being close to him and reforming him. Sometimes they do. Ronicky Doone is a fine gent. Brave, honest as the day's long, generous. But he ain't meant for a girl to love. I'm putting it strong. I don't mean that you feel anything like that for him yet. I'm just warning you. Because if you just give a gent like that a kind look, you may set him on fire; he starts making love like a fire in a storm; first thing you know, you're engaged. And that's the end. Jerry, you'll watch out?"

As he leaned earnestly toward her he saw her face whiten, saw her eyes widen. There was a ghost-seeing look about her, and instantly Hugh Dawn knew that a horror was standing in the door of the cabin. Instinctively he measured the distance to his gun. Like a fool he had hung it with his belt on a nail against the wall. It was hopelessly out of arm's length.

He turned his head with a convulsive jerk, and there in the door he saw Jack Moon.

Chapter
Eleven. The Trap
.

There was no gun in his hand, and yet the man radiated danger. His silent coming, the very smile with which he looked down on them, were filled with terror-inspiring qualities. As for Hugh Dawn, he uttered a faint groan and then whirled out of his chair and stood upon his widely braced feet. Even when Dawn reeled back within reaching distance of his gun on the wall and made a motion toward it, the tall man in the door did not offer to draw his own weapon, but the smile hardened a little on his mouth, and his eyes grew fixed.

Jerry knew that it was Jack Moon. She had never seen his face, never even heard it accurately described; but somehow she knew that the man there in the doorway was the root of all evil.

Suddenly she leaped from the bunk and cast herself before her father. That sudden motion had brought the revolver into the hand of Moon, but it was instantly restored to its holster. The double movement had been merely a flash of light. Such speed of hand was uncanny.

"Steady," said the outlaw. "No cause for jumping in front of the sneak, lady. I ain't going to shoot him right away. Not right away. Maybe never. All depends on how him and me come to agree. Or maybe well agree to disagree. Just you sit down yonder where you were, miss. No harm'll come to you." He removed his hat and bowed to her, and in so doing he half turned his back on her father.

She knew that the devilish brain of the man had inspired this maneuver to tempt her father into action. But Hugh Dawn was in no condition to fight. His will was paralyzed. He could not fight any more than the bird can escape from the hypnotic eye of the snake.

"They tell hard tales about Jack Moon," went on the big man, thus announcing himself, "but they never yet whispered a story about him laying a finger on a woman, young or old. I can tell you to lay to it that you're as safe with me as if you was a six-months-old baby in the arms of your mother. It ain't you I aim to talk to
it's that!"

He indicated her father with a jerk of his thumb. But for some reason his contempt did not degrade Hugh Dawn. The man would fight willingly enough against odds which were at all even. But he recognized the madness of a bulldog attacking a lion. Even as great as this was the contrast, it was not that Moon was so much larger in physical dimensions. But he was made bigger by an inward lordliness that overflowed. The poise of his head was that of a conqueror. His spirit towered above her father like the young Achilles over some nameless Trojan warrior.

"I seen the box outside," said Jack Moon. "What was in it, Dawn?"

There was no resistance in Dawn. He pointed sullenly to the slip of paper lying on the bed
the paper on which had been written the directions for reaching the site of the treasure.

The bandit strode across the room and reached for it, but the girl, with a lightning movement, forestalled him. She swept it up, leaped away from Moon, who followed with a startled exclamation, and, balling the paper to a hard knot as she ran, she reached the window above the lake and threw the paper as far as her strength allowed. The wind was blowing in that direction, and the precious slip would be wafted down to the waters of the lake.

The hand of Jack Moon was checked in the very act of falling on her shoulder and turning her around. But when she faced him, white and drawn about the lips, he was smiling again.

"That took nerve," he said, "seeing the reputation I got around these parts. But I got to tell you this, lady. It don't do even for ladies to fool with Jack Moon. I don't handle 'em the way I handle men, but most generally I find ways of makin' 'em behave. Now"
and here he turned on Hugh Dawn
"tell me what was on that paper!"

"No, no," shouted the girl. "Don't you see, dad, that it's the price of your own head?"

"There you are again," said Jack Moon sternly, seeing that the exclamation had sealed the lips of Dawn as the latter was about to speak. "You'll have to learn better than that, lady, before you're with me long. Dawn, will you open up and tell me?"

The gun gleamed in his hand. He thrust it against the breast of Dawn.

"Now talk quick," he muttered. "I know everything, Dawn. Treat heard you and Whitwell, but I want to get the yarn out of your own mouth. I'll tell you this, Dawn: if you open up, maybe they'll be a way out for you!"

"Don't talk, don't talk!" cried Jerry Dawn. "Don't trust him, dad!"

"If you care for your rotten soul," said Jack Moon, "come out with it, Dawn!"

The latter groaned: "What price d'you pay, Moon?"

"Price? What sort of a price d'you ask?"

"Freedom," said Dawn. "And your word on it."

"Would you trust him?" moaned Jerry.

"Be quiet, Jerry," said her father. "No matter what else Moon is, he's a man of his word. It's never been broke yet."

"But it's seldom given," replied Moon coolly. "Why should I give it to you now?"

"How high," retorted Dawn, "d'you put the price on my life?"

"Prices? I dunno. Prices change. I've known gents I'd shoot as soon as I'd kill a dog. I've known some that would have to pay thousands to buy themselves off. But for a gent that's double crossed me the way you've done
well, it'd have to be high!"

Hugh Dawn nodded.

"How high?" he asked.

"Everything you got," said the outlaw, "would be enough."

To the astonishment of the girl, her father shook his head, puzzled.

"You can make your choice," said Moon. "Either you turn over the whole Cosslett stuff to me or
"

"I haven't got the Cosslett money. You know that!"

"You've got the plan to show where it is."

"Suppose the plan turns out wrong?"

The admission implied in this question made the eyes of Jack Moon blaze.

"By the gods," he whispered, "you did get it!"

"You lied to me, then," growled Dawn. "Treat didn't hear Whitwell talk about the box and what he thought was in it!"

"Treat didn't hear anything. But now that I know you've got the plan inside your head, come out with it, Dawn, and you and me will make a dicker. Wait! Here's something that the rest of the boys have got to vote on. You can thank your stars that I've got the majority of the crew with me!"

He whistled, a shrill, fluting sound long prolonged, and there was a rushing of horses' hoofs up the slope to the crest of the hill. Presently the door and the windows were packed with ominous faces, and there was everywhere the glittering of drawn guns. Nearly a dozen men had gathered around the little ruined shanty in the space of a few seconds. Well indeed had it been for Hugh Dawn that he had not attacked the leader when the latter was seemingly alone.

"Boys," said Jack Moon to the dark faces which waited silently, all turned toward Dawn and his daughter, "I've run him down, but it seems that he can offer a price. I want to know what figure you'd put on his head?"

"Whitwell was my pal," said a voice sternly. "What price was he given a chance to pay? I say shoot the skunk and have it done with."

Another voice growled: "What price was Gandil given a chance to pay? Wasn't he a better man than Dawn ever dreamed of being? I say shoot the skunk!"

"Wait a minute, boys," said the leader, raising his hand. "You got as good a right to vote on this as I have. And you're going to have your way. You know I always see to that. But first I want you to know the whole facts. The price that Dawn can pay is the whole Cosslett treasure."

That astonishing news brought a gasp from every member of the band. Evidently Moon had talked about that accumulation of wealth enough to have filled the fancies of his wild followers.

"Are you sure of that?" asked a number of voices.

"I'm sure he's got the plan."

"And if we don't find the stuff?"

"Then Dawn dies. That's easy, ain't it? We give him our word that if we get the gold, he goes scot-free. If we don't get it, he dies. Are you with me, boys?"

"How much," said another voice, "d'you figure that gold would come to?"

"Five millions at least, and maybe anything up to twenty. Hard to believe all the yarns they told about that gold. Sometimes they got so excited they multiplied everything by four. Sometimes they got so careless about gold, and so used to it, that they understated things. I dunno how the Cosslett treasure stands, but I figure on five millions as the least we'd get. Think it over, boys! You and me! altogether, make fourteen. Add three more shares for me, which is only my right, and that makes seventeen. Seventeen into five million
how much does that make? Close to three hundred thousand dollars apiece, lads. Close to three hundred thousand! Put that out at seven per cent. That gives you twenty thousand a year. Think it over! That's the price that Hugh Dawn can offer for his life. The biggest haul that was ever made in the mountains. Twenty thousand dollars to every one of you every year of your lives. Is it worth his life to you, boys?"