Bucky O'Connor Part 22

"Do you expect to throw the prison doors wide open--let every scoundrel in Chihuahua loose on the public."

"We couldn't do that, since half of them are loose already," retorted O'Halloran dryly. "And as for the rest--we expect to make a selection, me son, to weed out a few choice ruffians and keep them behind the bars. But if ye know anything about the prisons of this country, you're informed, sir, that half the poor fellows behind bars don't belong there so much as the folk that put them there. I'm Irish, as ye are yourself, and it's me instinct to fight for the under dog. Why shouldn't the lads rotting behind those walls have another chance at the game? By the mother of Moses! they shall, if Mike O'Halloran has anything to say about it."

"You ce'tainly conduct your lawful elections in a beautifully lawless way," grinned the ranger.

"And why not? Isn't the law made for man?"

"For which man--Megales?"

"In order to give the greatest liberty to each individual man. But here comes young Valdez riding back as if he were in a bit of a hurry."

The filibuster rode forward and talked with the young man for a few minutes in a low voice. When he rejoined Bucky he nodded his head toward the young man, who was again headed for the front of the column.

"There's the best lad in the State of Chihuahua. He's a Mexican, all right, but he has as much sense as a white man. He doesn't mix issues.

Now, the lad's in love with Carmencita Megales, the prettiest black-eyed la.s.s in Mexico, and, by the same token, so is our friend Chaves, who just gave us the guns a little while ago. But Valdez is a man from the heel of him to the head. Miss Carmencita has her nose in the air because Juan doesn't snuggle up to ould Megales and flatter him the same way young Chaves does. So the lad is persona non grata at court with the lady, and that tin soldier who gave up the guns without a blow gets the lady's smiles. But it's my opinion that, for all her haughty ways, miss would rather have our honest fighting lad than a roomful of the imitation toy kind."

A couple of miles from the outskirts of the city the wagons separated, and each was driven to the a.s.signed place for the hiding of the rifles till night. At the edge of the town Bucky made arrangements to join his friend again at the monument in the centre of the plaza within fifteen minutes. He was to bring his little partner with him, and O'Halloran was to take them to a place where they might lie in hiding till the time set for the rising.

"I would go with ye, but I want to take charge of the unloading. Don't lose any time, lad, for as soon as Megales learns of what has happened his fellows will scour the town for every mother's son of us. Of course you have been under surveillance, and it's likely he'll try to bag you with the rest of us. It was a great piece of foolishness me forgetting about the line of the Chihuahua Northern and its telegraph. But there's a chance Chaves has forgot, too. Anyway, get back as soon as you can; after we're hidden, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack to put his fat finger on us."

Bucky went singing up the stairway of the hotel to his room. He was keen to get back to his little friend after the hazards of the night, eager to see the brown eyes light up with joy at sight of him and to hear the soft voice with the trailing inflection drawl out its shy questions. So he took the stairs three at a time, with a song on his lips and in his heart.

"'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone My dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen!

'Tis you shall have the golden throne, 'Tis you shall reign, and reign alone My dark Rosaleen!"

O'Connor, somewhat out of breath, was humming the last line when he pa.s.sed through the gypsy apartments and opened his own door, to meet one of the surprises of his life. Yet he finished the verse, though he was looking down the barrels of two revolvers in the hands of a pair of troopers, and though Lieutenant Chaves, very much at his ease, sat on the table dangling his feet.

Bucky's sardonic laughter rang out gayly. "I ce'tainly didn't expect to meet you here, lieutenant. May I ask if you have wings?"

"Not exactly, senor. But it is quite possible you may have before twenty-four hours," came the swift retort.

"Interesting, if true," remarked the ranger carelessly, tossing his gloves on the bed. "And may I ask to what I am indebted for the pleasure of a visit from you?"

"I am returning your call, sir, and at the very earliest opportunity.

I a.s.sure you that I have been in the city less than ten minutes, Senor whatever-you-choose-to-call-yourself. My promptness I leave you to admire."

"Oh, you're prompt enough, lieutenant. I noticed that when you handed over your gun to me so lamblike." He laughed it out flippantly, buoyantly, though it was on his mind to wonder whether the choleric little officer might not kill him out of hand for it.

But Chaves merely folded his arms and looked sternly at the American with a manner very theatrical. "Miguel, disarm the prisoner," he ordered.

"So I'm a prisoner," mused Bucky aloud. "And whyfor, lieutenant?"

"Stirring up insurrection against the government. The prisoner will not talk," decreed his captor, a frowning gaze attempting to quell him.

But here the popinjay officer reckoned without his host, for that gentleman had the most indomitable eyes in Arizona. It was not necessary for him to stiffen his will to meet the other's attack. His manner was still lazy, his gaze almost insolent in its indolence, but somewhere in the blue eyes was that which told Chaves he was his master. The Mexican might impotently rebel--and did; he might feed his vanity with the swiftness of his revenge, but in his heart he knew that the moment was not his, after all, or that it was his at least with no pleasure unalloyed.

"The prisoner will not talk," repeated Bucky, with drawling mockery.

"Sure he will, general. There's several things he's awful curious to know. One of them is how you happen to be Johnnie-on-the-spot so opportune."

The lieutenant's dignity melted before his vanity. Having so excellent a chance to sun the latter, he delivered himself of an oration. After all, silent contempt did not appear to be the best weapon to employ with this impudent fellow.

"Senor, no Chaves ever forgets an insult. Last night you, a common American, insulted me grossly--me, Lieutenant Ferdinand Chaves, me, of the bluest Castilian blood." He struck himself dramatically on the breast. "I submit, senor, but I vow revenge. I promised myself to spit on you, to spit on your Stars and Stripes, the flag of a nation of dirty traders. Ha! I do so now in spirit. The hour I have longed for is come."

Bucky took one step forward. His eyes had grown opaque and flinty. "Take care, you cur."

Swiftly Chaves hurried on without pressing the point. He had a prophetic vision of his neck in the vise grip of those brown, sinewy hands, and, though his men would afterward kill the man, small good would he get from that if the life were already squeezed out of him.

"And so what do I do? I think, and having thought I act with the swiftness of a Chaves. How? I ride across country. I seize a hand car.

My men pump me to town on the roadbed of the Northern. I telephone to the hotels and find where Americans are staying. Then I come here like the wind, arrest your friend, and send him to prison, arrest you also and send you to the gallows."

"That's real kind of you, general," replied Bucky, in irony sportive.

"But you really are putting yourself out too much for me. I reckon I'll not trouble you to go so far. By the way, did I understand you to say you had arrested a friend of mine?"

Indifferently he flung out the question, if his voice were index of his feeling, but his heart was pumping faster than it normally ought.

"He is in prison, where you will shortly join him. Soldiers, to the commandant with your captive."

If Bucky had had any idea of attempting escape, he now abandoned it at once. The place of all places where he most ardently desired to be at that moment was in the prison with his little comrade. His desire marched with that of Chaves so far, and the latter could not hurry him there too fast to suit him.

One feature of the situation made him chuckle, and that was this: The fiery lieutenant, intent first of all on his revenge, had given first thought to the capture of the man who had made mincemeat of his vanity and rendered him a possible subject of ridicule to his fellow officers.

So eager had he been to accomplish this that he had failed as yet to notify his superiors of what had happened, with the result that the captured guns had been safely smuggled in and hidden. Bucky thought he could trust O'Halloran to see that he did not stay long behind bars and bolts, unless indeed the game went against that sanguine and most cheerful plotter. In which event--well, that was a contingency that would certainly prove embarra.s.sing to the ranger. It might indeed turn out to be a good deal more than embarra.s.sing in the end. The thing that he had done would bear a plain name if the Megales faction won the day--and the punishment for it would be easy to guess. But it was not of himself that O'Connor was thinking. He had been in tight places before and squeezed safely out. But his little friend, the one he loved better than his life, must somehow be extricated, no matter how the cards fell.

The ranger was taken at once before General Carlo, the ranking army officer at Chihuahua, and, after a sharp preliminary examination, was committed to prison. The impression that O'Connor got of Carlo was not a rea.s.suring one. The man was a military despot, apparently, and a stickler for discipline. He had a hanging face, and, in the Yaqui war, had won the nickname of "the butcher" for his merciless treatment of captured natives. If Bucky were to get the same short shrift as they did--and he began to suspect as much when his trial was set for the same day before a military tribunal--it was time for him to be setting what few worldly affairs he had in order. Technically, Megales had a legal right to have him put to death and the impression lingered with Bucky that the sly old governor would be likely to do that very thing and later be full of profuse regrets to the United States Government that inadvertently a citizen of the great republic had been punished by mistake.

Bucky was registered and receipted for at the prison office, after which he was conducted to his cell. The corridors dripped as he followed under ground the guide who led the way with a flickering lantern. It was a gruesome place to contemplate as a permanent abode. But the young American knew that his stay here would be short, whether the termination of it were liberty or the gallows.

Reaching the end of a narrow, crooked corridor that sloped downward, the turnkey unlocked a ponderous iron door with a huge key, and one of the guards following at Bucky's heels, pushed him forward. He fell down two or three steps and came to a sprawling heap on the floor of the cell.

From the top of the steps came a derisive laugh as the door swung to and left him in utter darkness.

Stiffly the ranger got to his knees and was about to rise when a sound stopped him. Something was panting in deep breaths at the other side of the cell. A s.h.i.+ver of terror went goose-quilling down O'Connor's back.

Had they locked him up with some wild beast, to be torn to pieces? Or was this the ghost of some previous occupant? In such blackness of gloom it was easy to believe, or, at least, to imagine impossible conceptions that the light of day would have scattered in an instant. He was afraid--afraid to the marrow.

And then out of the darkness came a small, trembling voice: "Are you a prisoner, too, sir?"

Bucky wanted to shout aloud his relief--and his delight. The sheer joy of his laughter told him how badly he had been frightened. That voice--were he sunk in twice as deep and dark an inferno--he would know it among a thousand. He groped his way forward toward it.

"Oh, little pardner, I'm plumb tickled to death you ain't a ghost," he laughed.

"It is--Bucky?" The question joyfully answered itself.

"Right guess. Bucky it is."

He had hold of her hands by this time, was trying to peer down into the happy-brown eyes he knew were scanning him. "I can't see you yet, Curly Haid, but it's sure you, I reckon. I'll have to pa.s.s my hand over your face the way a blind man does," he laughed, and, greatly daring, he followed his own suggestion, and let his fingers wander across her crisp, thick hair, down her soft, warm cheeks, and over the saucy nose and laughing mouth he had often longed to kiss.

Presently she drew away shyly, but the lilt of happiness in her voice told him she was not offended. "I can see you, Bucky." The last word came as usual, with that sweet, hesitating, upward inflection that made her familiarity wholly intoxicating, even while the comrades.h.i.+p of it left room for an interpretation either of gay mockery or something deeper. "Yes, I can see you. That's because I have been here longer and am more used to the darkness. I think I've been here about a year." He felt her shudder. "You don't know how glad I am to see you."

"No gladder than I am to feel you," he answered gayly. "It's worth the price of admission to find you here, girl o'mine."