The Max Brand Megapack (229 page)

Her father, frantic with joy, clambered from the pit, kneeled by the mass, buried his hands in it, and then looked up to her with a maniacal laugh! Others were coming up. The chest had been gutted of its contents. And as fast as they reached the top of the ground, hand after hand, shaking with joy, was buried in the treasure. Then Baldy McNair broke the charm.

“Get down again, boys!” he cried. “This is only the beginning. There’s a ton of gold here. But what’s that? Not seven hundred thousand dollars! There must be more—ten times as much—maybe twenty times as much! Who knows? Come down again and dig!”

But the heavy voice of the leader answered him as Jack Moon climbed up from the pit.

“Hold the lanterns out. Look down yonder,” he commanded.

They obeyed. The chest had been smashed to pieces by Moon and put to one side, and in the clear place below it they saw the wet glimmer of bedrock.

“There’s no more,” explained Moon. “One dollar of gold always makes ten dollars’ worth of talk. And there you are! You’ll find no more treasure. That’s what Cosslett put down under ground, and that’s all he got. The rest is just talk—that I believed like a fool. But ain’t this enough? Over six hundred thousand dollars, boys. Split that by twenty for example—there you have thirty-three thousand dollars apiece. Is it enough?”

They had been promised ten times that much before. But half a million in talk did not equal the actuality of less than a tenth of that in sheer gold. On the damp pile of sand on the edge of the pit they apportioned the loot, with the aid of a pocket scales. There was a share for each of Moon’s twelve men, and for the leader himself three shares. To Ronicky and Dawn went also a share apiece. Seventeen shares, then, were apportioned.

Full darkness came while Moon still weighed and apportioned the gold with his scales. The dust had been hammered into small bars of every conceivable shape for the sake of security in handling, and now the men put their shares away in saddlebags or pieces of the canvas which had been used to cover the treasure in the chest, and some even divided the loot in small pieces and put it in their pockets.

And so at length they started up the hill for their camp, staggering under their burdens, yelling and singing as they walked, for all the world like a procession of wild drunkards. Corrigan helped the leader bear the crushing burden of his own portion.

On the way Moon found an opportunity to drop back to the side of Jerry Dawn.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’ll find a means of getting all this into the hands of the gent to whom it belongs—your father!”

“No, no!” whispered the girl, by this time completely misled. “You mustn’t dream of it! They’d do murder before they’d give it up. Besides, we’re amply repaid!”

“Tush!” Jack Moon smiled. “There’s ways of handling these gents. And I know all the ways!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Doone’s Share

Hunger, thirst, and food were forgotten in the excitement that followed the division of the gold. Only the cursing and the fierce commands of Jack Moon made his followers build a big fire and prepare a hasty supper. It was eaten by some, uneaten by others. The shouting and singing had no end. And the quick, bright, covetous glances were continually traveling toward the stores of neighbors.

Ronicky Doone found Hugh and his daughter a little removed. He dropped his canvas bag with its precious contents of gold at the feet of Dawn.

“I never would of taken it in the first place,” he said simply, “except to get more for you. There you are and welcome, Hugh; and if I could get more away from ’em and give it to you, I would. It’s yours by right.”

Hugh Dawn clutched the bag, his eyes glittering.

“Son,” he said, “I’ve always swore by you. But this is just too much, and—”

His daughter drew his hands from the canvas.

“Dad!” she cried in shame. “You’re not going to take it?”

“It’s his,” said Ronicky cheerfully. “It’s his—or else it lies there where it is. I don’t want it!”

“You don’t want it?” echoed the girl, staring up to him.

Money had always been scant and hard earned in her life. She saw this fellow giving her father what was the equivalent of the salary of forty years of school teaching, and her head turned at the mere thought of it.

“I don’t want it,” said Ronicky firmly. “Tell you why. I don’t figure a gent can ever get something for nothing. If you’re going to get money, you got to work for it some way. What work have I done to get this? Nope, I don’t want it.”

“You’ve worked as much as anyone,” said Hugh Dawn, urged on by a glance of his daughter to refuse the money.

“Well,” said Ronicky, “even if I have, I don’t want it. They’s been too many lives lost over the stuff to suit me. You take my share, partner. You couldn’t force the stuff on me. Not for a free gift!”

He leaned over the older man, who sat speechless before such generosity.

“Now’s the time to begin watching, Hugh. Watch every step. And when the pinch comes, get your back against my back!”

He straightened, turned, and was gone.

“Is it possible?” breathed the girl. “Is it possible that he can mean it? Gave all of that to us?”

“Look here!” exclaimed her father gruffly. “You’ve been letting Jack Moon poison you again’ Ronicky. But I tell you straight: wild as Ronicky is, his heart is cleaner than the gold in that sack. A pile cleaner! And his little finger is worth more’n all of Jack Moon. Moon? You think he’ll let me go now, and live up to his word? Wait and see, girl. Wait and see!”

She caught her breath.

“Then let’s go ask him now. Ask him for liberty to start, dad!”

He got to his feet unwillingly.

“It’s no good forcing Jack’s hand,” he said faintly.

“I tell you,” insisted the girl, “he’s a better man than we dreamed. If he hasn’t told me the truth, then there’s no truth in any living man! Dad, he means to do all he can for us!”

“That,” said her father, “is what you said about Ronicky Doone. And now you’ve changed your mind.”

“Ronicky Doone has some purpose,” she insisted. “Jack explained him. He means well enough. He acts on impulse. Just now he has given you gold. In ten minutes he may murder you to get it back again! That’s his character—as unstable as wind!”

Her father merely snorted in answer.

“All right,” he said. “I’m going to walk right up to Jack and tell him I’m ready to start. And you see what happens!”

She followed at a distance of a few paces. And it was her wide, frightened eyes of which Jack Moon was aware, not the strained face of Hugh himself.

“Jack,” said the suppliant, “I’ve come to ask you to live up to the promise you made. I want to know when I can start home to Trainer.”

The answer of the leader was made instantly.

“Any time you want—now, if you say the word!”

It staggered Hugh more than a blunt refusal. He could merely gape at Moon, and the latter was conscious of the flush of happiness which overspread the face of the girl. It was a dangerous game he was playing, and for the sake of bringing that flush into her face it well might be that he was giving her up forever. He went on smoothly enough.

“Blaze away for Trainor this minute if you want, Hugh. They’s two things agin’ it, but neither of them is me and what I want. You’re free as the wind to start, and good luck go with you. But it’s a tolerable bad trip in the night, riding through those mountains, and even if you got easygoing hosses you’re apt to be plumb tired before you hit Trainor to-morrow. But they’s another thing. Hugh”—here his voice lowered and grew gentry confidential—”you’d ought to get more’n one share of this stuff. Try to hang on. I’m going to see what can be done for you.”

The astonishment of Hugh Dawn was as great as though the ground had opened before his feet. He blinked. He tried to speak.

“You mean—” he began.

“I mean what I say,” said Jack Moon, smiling. “If you’re in doubt, just ask your daughter. I’ve told her everything. Now go back to your shack and go to sleep. Main reason being because you need rest, and I aim to get you on your way before sunup. No use letting the rest of the crowd know that you’ve slipped away. I may decide to tell ’em that you’ve just given us the slip. But if you want to go now, start—and I’ll see that they ain’t a hand raised to stop you!”

Hugh Dawn hesitated, then nodded. The dominant tone of the outlaw overwhelmed him.

“You’re mostly always right,” he admitted, “though it sure strikes me dumb having you thinking on my side of things like this!”

The hand of Moon fell gently on the shoulder of his old follower.

“Partner,” he said, “I’ve been thinking on your side ever since I saw your girl. The father of a girl like that is all right!”

He had allowed his voice to swell as though in the stress of his honest emotion, and from the corner of his eye he studied the effect of his words upon the girl. He was amply rewarded by the shining of her eyes.

“I wanted to throw a scare into you, Hugh. I sure wanted to do that. But I never meant to do any more—after I seen you and the girl together at Cosslett’s the other night. Before that I figured you were no good, you see? Just a traitor to me and the crowd and your word of honor. Afterward I seen why you had to leave us, and I didn’t much blame you. With a daughter like that to take care of, you’d of been a no-good skunk to of stayed with me. Go back to your shack now, Hugh. Have a sleep. I’ll tend to all the rest!”

He struck him lightly and reassuringly on the shoulder as he spoke, and Hugh Dawn flushed with gratitude. After all, his was a hearty nature, and the reaction from his long suspicion of Moon was sudden and violent.

“Jack,” he said, in an uneven voice, “I been thinking a lot of hard thoughts about you. I been telling the girl she was a fool to believe you, but I see that you’re straight, after all. No matter what you’ve done to others, you’re playing a white game with me, and if a pinch ever comes later on when I can help you, lay to it that I’m your man!”

He shook hands strongly with Moon and turned away.

His daughter swung in beside him with tears bright in her eyes. “I told you,” she was saying. “He’s a good man at heart, dad, just as I said he was!”

“He’s been changed,” muttered her father, with great emotion, “and it’s you that’s done the changing; almost by his account you are, Jerry. And Heaven bless you for it. It’s the smile of your mother that you’ve got. Jerry. And that’s what’s saved me this time from a dog’s death!”

He had picked up his own gold and the share which Ronicky had given him, and under that great weight he walked with slow, short steps toward the shack in which he had spent the preceding night. From the door, where he deposited it, he and Geraldine looked back at the party around the camp fire.

It had been growing wilder and noisier during the past hour. The camp fire had been built up to a comfortable height, so that the heat of it carried even to the shack where the girl and her father stood. It threw, also, a terrible and living light on the faces of the band of Jack Moon where they sat in groups of four, playing cards. Three groups of four, and on the table before each player was a glittering little pile of yellow metal. Usually gambling was a silent and serious effort, but tonight, with raw gold for the stakes, they played like madmen, shouting and calling from table to table. Pounds of gold were wagered on a single hand, and the loser laughed at his losses. For they had seen a fortune taken out of mother earth that day, and, if this were gone, might there not be another horde some place, discoverable by such lucky fellows as those who followed that prince of leaders, Jack Moon? Such, at least, seemed to be their spirit as they played poker. The unshaven faces grew more and more animal-like as, from the distance, the firelight seemed redder and the shadows blacker than ever.

“They’re terrible men,” said the girl. “Ah, dad, what if Jack Moon should lose control of them!”

“Him?” The father chuckled confidently. “He’ll never lose control. Little you know Jack Moon, girl, if you think that any dozen men can get the upper hand of him!”

“But suppose some of them should lose a great deal and remember that you have money and—”

“Long as Moon is on our side, we’re safe as though we had a thousand. Stop worrying. Go to sleep—and trust in Jack Moon. Fear him when he’s agin’ you; but trust him like a rock when he’s behind you. No, sir, no dozen men can handle him. But if it come to a pinch—I dunno; yonder may be a man that’d give him a hard rub!”

“Where?”

“Close to that pine.”

He pointed again, and she made out the form of Ronicky Doone where he stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking on at the games.

“He doesn’t play,” she remarked.

“He’s smelling trouble,” said her father, “and that’s why he’s keeping his nerves steady. If him and the chief meet up, then’ll come the big noise and the big trouble, girl. You lay to that! One nacheral fighting man is worse’n a hundred common ones to handle!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Beaten

As Hugh Dawn disappeared inside his shack, Jerry strolled slowly toward her own hut. She recalled the man who had brought her and her father safely from the house when Moon and his band stole toward it. She recalled the keen face of Ronicky when they worked over the puzzling record through which Cosslett had left trace of his buried treasure. Swift of hand, steady of eye, resourceful of brain—after all, her father might be right, and in the slender figure of Ronicky there might be locked sufficient power to match the big body and the strong brain of Jack Moon. What the eyes told her was simply an overwhelming contrast; what the memory told her equaled the scales to some extent. But how could her father speak of Ronicky and Moon as though they were antagonists, when Ronicky was now, it seemed, a member of Moon’s own band? Did he mean that the two might battle for supremacy inside the band?

She swerved directly so as to pass close to Ronicky Doone, and she noted that he paid not the slightest heed to her. At that, she paused. He had admired her before, she knew. Perhaps it might have been more than admiration, but now he looked past her into thin space.

“Ronicky!” she murmured, as she paused near him.