Bucky O'Connor Part 12

"I'm surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid," he told himself grimly.

But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even madness.

Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to set out for any point where he was needed.

Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at it, and voiced his perplexity.

"Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better s.h.i.+p you back to the Rocking Chair."

"I don't want to go back there. He'll come out again and find me after you leave."

"Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in the convent school here," he reflected aloud.

Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth's cheeks. "Why can't I go with you?" he asked shyly.

The ranger laughed. "Mebbe you think I'm going on a picnic. Why, I'm starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble's shoulder. Like as not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky's scalp down in manyana land.

No, sir, this doesn't threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion."

"If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I'm awful good at making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native."

"Sho! You don't want to go running your neck into a noose. It's a jail-break I'm planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we get back to G.o.d's country--if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then some, for there's a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as your uncle happens to know from reliable information."

"Two can always work better than one. Try me, Bucky," pleaded the boy, the last word slipping out with a trailing upward inflection that was irresistible.

"Sure you won't faint if we get in a tight pinch, Curly?" scoffed O'Connor, even though in his mind he was debating a surrender. For he was extraordinarily taken with the lad, and his judgment justified what the boy had said.

"I shall not be afraid if you are with me."

"But I may not be with you. That's the trouble. Supposing I should be caught, what would you do?"

"Follow any orders you had given me before that time. If you had not given any, I would use my best judgment."

"I'll give them now," smiled Bucky. "If I'm lagged, make straight for Arizona and tell Webb Mackenzie or Val Collins."

"Then you will take me?" cried the boy eagerly.

"Only on condition that you obey orders explicitly. I'm running this cutting-out expedition."

"I wouldn't think of disobeying."

"And I don't want you to tell me any lies."

"No."

Bucky's big brown fist caught the little one and squeezed it. "Then it's a deal, kid. I only hope I'm doing right to take you."

"Of course you are. Haven't you promised to make a man of me?" And again Bucky caught that note of stifled laughter in the voice, though the big brown eyes met his quite seriously.

They took the train that night for El Paso, Bucky in the lower berth and his friend in the upper of section six of one of the Limited's Pullman cars. The ranger was awake and up with the day. For a couple of hours he sat in the smoking section and discussed politics with a Chicago drummer. He knew that Frank was very tired, and he let him sleep till the diner was taken on at Lordsburg. Then he excused himself to the traveling man.

"I reckon I better go and wake up my pardner. I see the chuck-wagon is toddling along behind us."

Bucky drew aside the curtains and shook the boy gently by the shoulder.

Frank's eyes opened and looked at the ranger with that lack of comprehension peculiar to one roused suddenly from deep sleep.

"Time to get up, Curly. The n.i.g.g.e.r just gave the first call for the chuck-wagon."

An understanding of the situation flamed over the boy's face. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the curtains from the Arizonian and gathered them tightly together. "I'll thank you not to be so familiar," he said shortly from behind the closed curtains.

"I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself announced and craved an audience, I reckon," was Bucky's ironic retort; and swiftly on the heels of it he added. "You make me tired, kid."

O'Connor was destined to be "made tired" a good many times in the course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as to his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of embarra.s.sment to brush his teeth before his fellow pa.s.sengers. Nor did it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while he was finis.h.i.+ng his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of innocence in the lad tied his tongue.

"Blame it all, I'm getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank needs is a first-cla.s.s dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest,"

he admitted to himself ruefully. "Just when something comes up that needs a good round d.a.m.n I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his, and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. I've got to quit trailing with him, or I'll be joining the church first thing I know. He makes me feel like I want to be good, confound the little swindle."

Notwithstanding the ranger's occasional moments of exasperation, the two got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in delving into the other's unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into one of those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and man. Some subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the hearts of each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have explained what lay at the roots of it, but O'Connor admitted that he was "buffaloed" when he attempted an a.n.a.lysis of his unusual feeling.

From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them to Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso. Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded in their object.

At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their chances.

"It isn't a very gay outlook," Bucky admitted cheerfully to his companion, "but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican officials weren't slower than mola.s.ses in January it might have been better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of Hardman's confession. But it would take them two or three years to come to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at the last, then. Course I've got the law machinery grinding, too, but I'm not banking on it real heavy. We'll get him out first any old way, then get the government to O. K. the thing."

"How were you thinking of proceeding?"

"I expect it's time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon you happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there's usually a revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those for the government and those ferninst. The 'ins' stand pat, but the 'outs' have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there's mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody has to be shot, and it's always so much to the good if they can line up gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it's an Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens to be Mickey O'Halloran, an old friend of mine. I'm going to put it up to Mick to find a way."

"But it isn't any affair of his. He won't do it, will he?"

"Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish."

"Well?"

"And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his fist out of the hive when there's such a gem of a chance to get stung?"

It had been Frank's suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The reason for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as soon as they were alone Frank explained.

"It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well, we'll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we shall be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors. It will give us a great deal more liberty."

"Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less.

What's your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?"

"We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we could easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes."

"You would be a gipsy lad?"

The youngster blushed. "A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband."