Bucky O'Connor Part 30

They found themselves in a small chamber fitted up as a living room in a simple way. There were three plain chairs, a bed, a table, and a dresser, as well as a cooking stove.

"This must be close to the prison. We have been coming in that direction all the time. It is strange that it could be so near and I not know of it," said the warden, looking around curiously.

Megales smiled. "I am the only person alive that knew of the existence of this room or of the secret pa.s.sage until half an hour ago. I had it built a few years since by Yaquis when I was warden of the prison.

The other end, the one opening from the palace, I had finished after I became governor."

"But surely the men who built it know of its existence."

Again Megales smiled. "I thought you knew me better, Carlo. The Yaquis who built this were condemned raiders. I postponed their execution a few months while they were working on this. It was a convenience both to them and to me."

"And is also a convenience to me," smiled Carlo, who was beginning to recover from his terror.

"But I don't quite understand yet how we are to get out of here except by going back the way we came," said Gabilonda.

"Which for some of us might prove a dangerously unhealthy journey. True, colonel, and therefore one to be avoided." Megales stepped to the wall, spanned with his fingers a s.p.a.ce from the floor above a joint in the masonry, and pressed against the concrete. Inch by inch the wall fell back and opened into a lower corridor of the prison, the very one indeed which led to the cell in which Bucky and his love were imprisoned.

Cautiously the Spaniard's glance traveled down the pa.s.sage to see it was empty before he opened the panel door more than enough to look through.

Then he beckoned to Gabilonda. "Behold, doubting Thomas!"

The warden gasped. "And I never knew it, never had a suspicion of it."

"But this only brings us from one prison to another," objected the general. "We might be penned in here as well as at the castle."

"Even that contingency has been provided for. You noticed, perhaps, where the tunnel forked. The left branch runs down to the river-wash, and by ten minutes' digging with the tools lying there one can force an exit."

"Your excellency is certainly a wonder, and all this done without arousing the least suspicion of anybody," admired the warden.

"The wise man, my dear colonel, prepares for emergencies; the fool trusts to his luck," replied the governor dryly.

"Are we to stay here for the present, colonel?" broke in the governor's daughter. "And can you furnish accommodations for the rest of us if we stay all night, as I expect we must?"

"My dear senorita, I have accommodations and to spare. But the trouble is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest'

man alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua's fairest daughter. But if it should get out that you are here--" Gabilonda stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at the prospect.

"We shall have to stay here, or, at least, in the lower tier of cells.

I'm sorry, Carmencita, but there is no other course compatible with safety," decided Megales promptly.

The warden's face cleared. "That is really not a point for me to decide, governor. This young American, O'Connor, is now in charge of the prison.

I must release him at once, and shall then bring him here to confer with you as to means of safety."

Bucky's eyes opened wide when Gabilonda and Megales came alone and without a lantern to his cell. In the darkness it was impossible to recognize them, but once within the closed cell the warden produced a dark lantern from under his coat.

"Circ.u.mstances have arisen that make the utmost vigilance necessary,"

explained the warden. "I may begin my explanations by congratulating you and your young friend. Let me offer a thousand felicitations. Neither of you are any longer prisoners."

If he expected either of them to fall on his neck and weep tears of grat.i.tude at his pompous announcement, the colonel was disappointed.

From the darkness where the ranger's little partner sat on the bed came a deep sigh of relief, but O'Connor did not wink an eyelash.

"I may conclude, then, that Mike O'Halloran has been getting in his work?" was his cool reply.

"Exactly, senor. He is the man on horseback and I travel afoot," smiled Megales.

Bucky looked him over coolly from head to foot. "Still I can't quite understand why your ex-excellency does me the honor of a personal visit."

"Because, senor, in the course of human events Providence has seen fit to reverse our positions. I am now your prisoner and you my jailer,"

explained Megales, and urbanely added a whimsical question. "Shall you have me hanged at dawn?"

"It would be a pleasure, and, I reckon, a duty too. But I can't promise till I've seen Mike. Do some more explaining, colonel. I want to know all about the round-up O'Halloran is boss of. Did he make a right good gather?"

The subtleties of American humor baffled the little Mexican, but he appreciated the main drift of the ranger's query, and narrated with much gesticulation the story of the coup that O'Halloran had pulled off in capturing the government leaders.

"It was an exceedingly neat piece of strategy," its victim admitted. "I would give a good deal to have the privilege of hanging your red-headed friend, but since that is denied me, I must be grateful he does not take a fancy to hang me."

"In case he doesn't, your excellency," was Bucky's addendum.

"I understand he has decided to deport me," retorted Megales lightly.

"It is perhaps better politics, on the whole, better even than a knife in the back."

"Unless rumor is a lying jade, you should be a good judge of that, governor," said the American, eyeing him sternly.

Megales shrugged. "One of the penalties of fame is that one gets credit for much he does not deserve. There was your immortal General Lincoln, a wit so famous in your country that every good story is fathered upon him, I understand. So with your humble servant. Let a man accomplish his vendetta upon the body of an enemy, and behold! the world cries: 'A victim of Megales.'"

"Still, if you deserve your reputation as much as our immortal General Lincoln deserves his, the world may be pardoned for an occasional error." O'Connor turned to the warden. "What does he mean by saying that he is my prisoner? Have you a message for me from O'Halloran, colonel?"

"It is his desire, senor, that, pending the present uncertain state of public opinion, you accept the command of the prison and hold safe all persons detained here, including his excellency and General Carlo. He desired me to a.s.sure you that as soon as is possible he will arrive to confer with you in person."

"Good enough, and are you a prisoner, too, colonel?"

"I did not so understand Senor O'Halloran."

"If you're not you have to earn your grub and lodgings. I'll appoint you my deputy, colonel. And, first off, my orders are to lock up his excellency and General Carlo in this cell till morning."

"The cell, Senor O'Connor, is damp and badly ventilated," protested Gabilonda.

"I know that a heap better than you do, colonel," said Bucky dryly. "But if it was good enough for me and my pardner, here, I reckon it's good enough for them. Anyhow, we'll let them try it, won't we, Frank."

"If you think best, Bucky."

"You bet I do."

"And what about the governor's daughter?" asked Gabilonda.

"You don't say! Is she a guest of this tavern?"

The colonel explained how they had reached the prison and the circ.u.mstances that had led to their hurried flight, while the ranger whistled the air of a cowboy song, his mind busy with this new phase of the case.

"She's one of these here Spanish blue-blooded senoritas used to guitar serenades under her window. Now, what would you do with her in a jail, Bucky?" he asked himself, in humorous dismay; but even as he reflected on it his roving eye fell on his friend. "The very thing. I'll take Curly Haid in to her and let them fall in love with each other. You're liable to be some busy, Bucky, and shy on leisure to entertain a lady, let alone two."

And so he arranged it. Leaving the former governor and General Carlo in the cell just vacated by them, Frances and he accompanied Gabilonda to the secret room behind the corridor wall.