Brand Blotters Part 56

The outlaw stirred uneasily in his seat. His vanity objected to another man holding the limelight while he was present.

Melissy turned. "I think you have never met Lieutenant O'Connor, Mr.

Bellamy. Lieutenant--Mr. Bellamy."

They shook hands. MacQueen smiled. He was enjoying himself.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Bellamy. You and Flatray have won the honors surely. You beat us all to it, sir. As I rode in this mornin', everybody was telling how you rounded up the outlaws. Have you caught MacQueen himself?"

"Not yet. We have reason to believe that he rode within ten miles of town this morning before he cut across to the railroad. The chances are that he will try to board a train at some water tank in the dark. We're having them all watched. I came in to telephone all stations to look out for him."

"Where's Jack?" Melissy asked.

"He'll be here presently. His arm was troubling him some, so he stopped to see the doctor. Then he has to talk with his deputy."

"You're sure he isn't badly hurt?"

"No, only a scratch, he calls it."

"Did you happen on Dead Man's Cache by accident?" asked MacQueen with well-a.s.sumed carelessness.

Bellamy had no intention of giving Rosario away to anybody. "You might call it that," he said evenly. "You know, I had been near there once when I was out hunting."

"Do you expect to catch MacQueen?" the outlaw asked, a faint hint of irony in his amused voice.

"I can't tell. That's what I'm hoping, lieutenant."

"We hope for a heap of things we never get," returned the outlaw, in a gentle voice, his eyes half shuttered behind drooping lids.

Melissy cut into the conversation hurriedly. "Lieutenant O'Connor is going on the seven-five this evening, Mr. Bellamy. He has business that will take him away for a while. It is time we were going. Won't you walk down to the train with us?"

MacQueen swore softly under his breath, but there was nothing he could say in protest. He knew he could not take the girl with him. Now he had been cheated out of his good-byes by her woman's wit in dragging Bellamy to the depot with them. He could not but admire the adroitness with which she had utilized her friend to serve her end.

They walked to the station three abreast, the outlaw carrying as lightly as he could the heavy suitcase that held his plunder. Melissy made small talk while they waited for the train. She was very nervous, and she was trying not to show it.

"Next time you come, lieutenant, we'll have a fine stone depot to show you. Mr. West has promised to make Mesa the junction point, and we're sure to have a boom," she said.

A young Mexican vaquero trailed softly behind them, the inevitable cigarette between his lips. From under his broad, silver-laced sombrero he looked keenly at each of the three as he pa.s.sed.

A whistle sounded clearly in the distance.

The outlaw turned to the girl beside him. "I'm coming back some day soon.

Be sure of that, Mrs. MacQueen."

The audacity of the name used, designed as it was to stab her friend and to remind Melissy how things stood, made the girl gasp. She looked quickly at Bellamy and saw him crush the anger from his face.

The train drew into the station. Presently the conductor's "All aboard!"

served notice that it was starting. The outlaw shook hands with Melissy and then with the mine owner.

"Good-bye. Don't forget that I'm coming back," he said, in a perfectly distinct, low tone.

And with that he swung aboard the Pullman car with his heavy suitcase. An instant later the Mexican vaquero pulled himself to the vestibule of the smoking car ahead.

MacQueen looked back from the end of the train at the two figures on the platform. A third figure had joined them. It was Jack Flatray. The girl and the sheriff were looking at each other. With a furious oath, he turned on his heel. For the evidence of his eyes had told him that they were lovers.

MacQueen pa.s.sed into the coach and flung himself down into his section discontentedly. The savor of his adventure was gone. He had made his escape with a large share of the plunder, in spite of spies and posses.

But in his heart he knew that he had lost forever the girl whom he had forced to marry him. He was still thinking about it somberly when a figure appeared in the aisle at the end of the car.

Instantly the outlaw came to alert attention, and his hand slipped to the b.u.t.t of a revolver. The figure was that of the Mexican vaquero whom he had carelessly noted on the platform of the station. Vigilantly his gaze covered the approaching man. Surely in Arizona there were not two men with that elastic tread or that lithe, supple figure.

His revolver flashed in the air. "Stand back, Bucky O'Connor--or, by G.o.d, I'll drill you!"

The vaquero smiled. "Right guess, Black MacQueen. I arrest you in the name of the law."

Black's revolver spat flame twice before the ranger's gun got into action, but the swaying of the train caused him to stagger as he rose to his feet.

The first shot of Bucky's revolver went through the heart of the outlaw; but so relentless was the man that, even after that, his twitching fingers emptied the revolver. O'Connor fired only once. He watched his opponent crumple up, fling wild shots into the upholstery and through the roof, and sink into the silence from which there is no awakening on this side of the grave. Then he went forward and looked down at him.

"I reckon that ends Black MacQueen," he said quietly. "And I reckon Melissy Lee is a widow."

Jack Flatray had met O'Connor at his own office and the two had come down to the station on the off chance that MacQueen might try to make his getaway from Mesa in some disguise. But as soon as he saw Melissy the sheriff had eyes for n.o.body else except the girl he loved. One sleeve of his coat was empty, and his shoulder was bandaged. He looked very tired and drawn; for he had ridden hard more than sixteen hours with a painful wound. But the moment his gaze met hers she knew that his thoughts were all for her and her trouble.

His free hand went out to meet hers. She forgot MacQueen and all the sorrow he had brought her. Her eyes were dewy with love and his answered eagerly. She knew now that she would love Jack Flatray for better or worse until death should part them. But she knew, too, that the shadow of MacQueen, her husband by law, was between them.

Together they walked back from the depot. In the shadow of the vines on her father's porch they stopped. Jack caught her hands in his and looked down into her tired, haggard face all lit with love. Tears were in the eyes of both.

"You're ent.i.tled to the truth, Jack," she told him. "I love you. I think I always have. And I know I always shall. But I'm another man's wife. It will have to be good-bye between us, Jack," she told him wistfully.

He took her in his arms and kissed her. "You're my sweetheart. I'll not give you up. Don't think it."

He spoke with such strength, such a.s.surance, that she knew he would not yield without a struggle.

"I'll never be anything to him--never. But he stands between us. Don't you see he does?"

"No. Your marriage to him is empty words. We'll have it annulled. It will not stand in any court. I've won you and I'm going to keep you. There's no two ways about that."

She broke down and began to sob quietly in a heartbroken fas.h.i.+on, while he tried to comfort her. It was not so easy as he thought. So long as MacQueen lived Flatray would walk in danger if she did as he wanted her to do.

Neither of them knew that Bucky O'Connor's bullet had already annulled the marriage, that happiness was already on the wing to them.

This hour was to be for their grief, the next for their joy.

The End

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