The Bad Man Part 40

"I regret--that water--I gave away so liberally," Pell said, his voice weak.

"There's more," Gilbert cried. "I'll get it." He went hurriedly to the kitchen.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Lucia asked, sympathy in her tone.

Always with her was the womanly instinct to serve, to help. Morgan was like a wounded animal to her, and as deserving of attention as any hurt thing.

"No, thank you," he said.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I ..."

Gilbert was back with another canteen. He went close to Pell and put the jug to his lips, standing by his side, leaning over to proffer the cooling water. As he did so, Pell stealthily reached out--Lucia could not see the movement, for she had gone over to the fireplace--and craftily removed Gilbert's gun from his hip-pocket. While in the very act of taking this man's sustenance, he was playing him a foul trick. His heart lost a beat at the easy success of his plan, the fulfillment of a wish he had been harboring for the last ten minutes. He thrust the canteen away, stood up suddenly, and pointed the stolen weapon straight at Jones.

"Now, I've got you just where I want you!" he snarled.

Lucia saw his base trickery. Why had she been so stupid as to believe in him again? Why had she not warned Gilbert? What fools they had both been!

"Gil!" she cried out; and anguish was hers--a deep, horrible moment of suffering. It was all up with them. They were as helpless as Pell had been with the bandit a few hours before. Caught, ensnared, trapped!

"Why, d.a.m.n you!" Gilbert screamed, and made a futile lunge for Pell. But he was too late. The revolver was leveled at his head.

"Make a fool out of me, will you, you s----" Pell said, and his eyes glittered. A snake never looked more venomous. "I've got you now--got you both, and by G.o.d--"

"He means it, Gil!" Lucia cried, and threw herself into her lover's arms.

She would die, if he died--she would die with him.

Pell stepped nearer to his intended victim. "Our wife is right," he scoffed. "It isn't killing that I mind--it's being killed that I object to."

"They'll hang you!" Gilbert warned.

Pell smiled his sardonic, evil smile. "The unwritten law works in Arizona as well as in other places." He brutally ordered Lucia to get out of his way.

But Lucia still clung to Gilbert. "I won't! I won't move!" she yelled, and her voice held the desperation of womankind.

Deliberately Pell said: "All right! Then take what's coming to you and you go to h.e.l.l together, d.a.m.n you both!"

He raised the gun and aimed a deadly aim.

Gilbert, in that mad moment, threw Lucia aside, to save her. He could not let her die with him, much as he hated to leave her with this fiend incarnate. "You'd better shoot straight," he cried to Pell. "Because, by G.o.d, if you miss...." With one wild lunge, he knocked the lamp from the table between them, and there was instant and terrible darkness.

Confused, Pell did not know what to do. His tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth, his hand seemed to freeze on the trigger.

"What the devil!" he called out. And then a figure appeared miraculously in the alcove, where one candle still burned, shedding a ghostly beam of light from a shelf. "Good G.o.d!"

A shot rang out. But it was not Pell's revolver from which it sped. Morgan Pell crumpled at the feet of Gilbert, and the bandit rushed in, the smoke still coming from his gun.

"Santa Maria del Rio de Guadaloupe!" he cried. "'Ow many time I got for to kill you to-day, any'ow? Now, d.a.m.n to 'ell, mebbe you stay dead a while, eh?" He looked down at the shriveled form. And as of old he called to his henchman, "Pedro!"

And Pedro was there. "_Si!_" he said.

"Did I not tell you for kill zis man?" said Lopez, pointing in disgust to Morgan Pell.

Swiftly in Spanish, and frightened almost out of his wits, poor Pedro muttered something wholly unintelligible.

"Ees b.u.m shooting! If she 'appen some more, zen I 'ave for get new Pedro.

Should be too bad. Especially for you. You onnerstand?"

Terrified at the thought, poor Pedro simply s.h.i.+vered. "_Si_," he whispered.

Lopez indicated Pell's body, and took out a cigarette nonchalantly. "Take 'im away. Ees no use for n.o.body no more." Pedro started to lift the heavy form. "Save ze clothes and ze boots," he reminded his faithful man.

"_Si_," the latter said, meekly.

Venustiano appeared from the outer darkness, as if by magic, and rushed to Pedro's aid. They lifted the stricken Pell, and carried him away.

The distasteful business finished, Lopez turned to Gilbert.

"Now, zen, you all right some more, eh?" he asked.

Gilbert could not understand. "I guess so," he said, "I--I thought you were captured!"

"Me?" said Lopez in surprise, "It is not me, ees my double!"

"Your double?" Gilbert, amazed, answered.

"Ees idea what I get from ze moving pitchers."

Gilbert and Lucia stared at each other; then at the bandit.

"Then it wasn't you they captured?" Gilbert said.

He flicked the ashes from his cigarette. "I should be capture by ze d.a.m.n ranger? Ees a idea!" He roared with mirth. "No, no! Long time I 'ave fix zat."

"But how? How do you work it?" Gilbert inquired, his brain in a tumult.

"I pick from my men ze best rider. I make 'im for look like me. So when ze ranger wish for chase me, 'e go while I remain be'ind. It save me moch hexercise. Say, why you no kill 'im yourself? You got ze gun." Lopez was mystified.

"I--I couldn't," Gilbert answered.

"Ees no difference from us three--me, you, and 'im," Lopez explained. "You is afraid for kill. 'E was afraid for die. Me, I am afraid for neizer! Now zen, what you do, eh?" He patted Gilbert on the shoulder.

"I don't know," the young man said. "We've got to go somewhere."

Lopez was firm. "No. You shall stay right 'ere in your 'ome sweet 'ome."

"But I've lost the place." He pointed to the little clock that was ticking out its relentless minutes. "It's after eight o'clock."

"No," said Lopez, definitely. "For at 'alf-past six-thirty, what I do? I tell you. When I am chase by ze ranger what I follow, I sink for myself eight o'clock she soon come. Suppose moggidge of my frands he meet wiz accident? Would never do!" He waved his arms. "So I goes and pays 'er myself!" He handed Gilbert a paper.

Gilbert could not believe his eyes. "What's that?" he wanted to know.