Bucky O'Connor Part 15

"Well, I'll not lift a finger, Bucky--not a finger."

"I knew you wouldn't stand to see a man like Henderson rot in a dungeon.

No Irishman would."

"You needn't blarney me. I'm too old a bird to be caught with chaff.

It's a dirty shame, of course, about this man Henderson, but I'm not running the criminal jurisprudence of Mexico meself."

"And I said to Webb Mackenzie: 'Mickey O'Halloran is the man to see; he'll know the best way to do it as n.o.body else would.' I knew I could depend on you."

"You've certainly kissed the blarney stone, Mr. O'Connor," returned the revolutionist dryly. "Well, then, what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing much. Get Henderson out and help us to get safely from the country whose reputation you black-eye so cheerfully."

"Mercy of Hiven! Bring me the moon and a handful of stars, says he, as cool as you please."

The ranger told the story of Henderson and Mackenzie's lost child in such a way that it lost nothing in the telling. O'Halloran was moved.

"'Tis a d.a.m.ned shame about this man Henderson," he blurted out.

Bucky leaned back comfortably and waved airily his brown hand. "It's up to you," his gay, impudent eyes seemed to say.

"I don't say I won't be able to help you," conceded O'Halloran. "It happens, me bye, that you've dropped in on me just before the band begins to play." He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "There's a s.h.i.+pment of pianos being brought down the line this week. The night after they arrive I'm looking for music."

"I see. The piano boxes are filled with rifles and ammunition."

"You have a mind like a tack, Bucky. Rifles is the alias of them pianos.

They'll make merry music once we get them through."

"That's all very well, but have you reckoned with the government at Mexico? Chihuahua isn't the whole country, Mickey. Suppose President Diaz takes a hand in the game and sends troops in on you?"

"He won't," answered the other, with a wink. "He's been seen. The president isn't any too friendly to that old tyrant Megales, who is now governor here. There's an election next week. The man that gets most votes will be elected, and I'm thinking, Bucky, that the man with most rifles will the most votes. Now, says Diaz, in effect, with an official wave of his hand, 'Settle your own rows, gintlemen. I don't give a d.a.m.n whether Megales or Valdez is governor of Chihuahua, subject, of coorse, to the will of the people.' Then he winks at Valdez wid his off eye as much as to say: 'Go in an' win, me boy; me prayers are supporting ye.

But be sure ye do nothing too illegal.' So there ye are, Bucky. If ould Megales was to wake up election morning and find that the polling-places was in our hands, his soldiers disarmed or bought over, and everything contributing smoothly to express the will of the people in electing him to take a swift hike out of Chihuahua, it is likely that he might accept the inevitable as the will of fate and make a strategic retreat to climes more healthy."

"And if in the meantime he should discover those rifles, or one of those slant-eyed senors should turn out a Benedict Arnold, what then, my friend?"

"Don't talk in that cruel way. You make me neck ache in antic.i.p.ation,"

returned O'Halloran blithely.

"I think we'll not travel with you in public till after the election, Mr. O'Halloran," reflected Bucky aloud.

"'Twould be just as well, me son. My friends won't be overpopular with Megales if the cards fall his way."

"If you win, I suppose we may count Henderson as good as a free man?"

"It would be a pity if me pull wouldn't do a little thing like that,"

scoffed the conspirator genially.

"But, win or lose, I may be able to help you. We need musicians to play those pianos we're bringing in. Well, the most dependable men we can set to play some of them are the prisoners in the fortress. There's likely to be a wholesale jail delivery the night before the election. Now, it's just probable that the lads we free will fight to keep their freedom.

That's why we use them. They HAVE to be true to us because, if they don't, WHICHEVER SIDE WINS back they go to jail."

"Of course. I wish I could take a hand myself. But I can't, because I'm a soldier of a friendly power. We'll get Henderson out the night before the election and leave on the late train. You'll have to arrange the program in time for us to catch that train."

O'Halloran looked drolly at him. "I'm liking your nerve, young man.

I pull the chestnuts out of the fire for yez and, likely enough, get burned. You walk off with your chestnut, and never a 'Thank ye' for poor Mickey the catspaw."

"It doesn't look like quite a square deal, does it?" laughed the ranger.

"Well, we might vary the program a bit. Bucky O'Connor, Arizona ranger, can't stop and take a hand in such a game, but I don't know anything to prevent a young gipsy from Spain staying over a few days."

"If you stay, I shall," announced the boy Frank.

"You'll do nothing of the kind, seh. You'll do just as I say, according to the agreement you made with me when I let you come," was Bucky's curt answer. "We're not playing this game to please you, Master Frank."

Yet though the ranger spoke curtly, though he still tried to hold toward his comrade precisely the same att.i.tude as he had before discovering her s.e.x, he could not put into his words the same peremptory sting that, he had done before when he found that occasionally necessary. For no matter how severely he must seem to deal with her to avoid her own suspicions as to what he knew, as well as to keep from arousing those of others, his heart was telling a very different story all the time. He could see again the dainty grace with which she had danced for him, heard again that low voice breaking into a merry piping lilt, warmed once more to the living, elusive smile, at once so tender and mocking. He might set his will to preserve an even front to her gay charm, but it was beyond him to control the thrills that shot his pulses.

CHAPTER 8. FIRST BLOOD!

Occasionally Alice Mackenzie met Collins on the streets of Tucson. Once she saw him at the hotel where she was staying, deep in a discussion with her father of ways and means of running down the robbers of the Limited. He did not, however, make the least attempt to push their train acquaintances.h.i.+p beyond the give and take of casual greeting. Without showing himself unfriendly, he gave her no opportunity to determine how far they would go with each other. This rather piqued her, though she would probably have rebuffed him if he had presumed far. Of which probability Val Collins was very well aware.

They met one morning in front of a drug store downtown. She carried a parasol that was lilac-trimmed, which shade was also the outstanding note of her dress. She was looking her very best, and no doubt knew it.

To Val her dainty freshness seemed to breathe the sweetness of spring violets.

"Good morning, Miss Mackenzie. Weather like this I'm awful glad I ain't a mummy," he told her. "The world's mighty full of beautiful things this glad day."

"Essay on the Appreciation of Nature, by Professor Collins," she smiled.

"To be continued in our next," he amended. "Won't you come in and have a sundae? You look as if you didn't know it, but the rest of us have discovered it's a right warm morning."

Looking across the little table at him over her sundae, she questioned him with innocent impudence. "I saw you and dad deep in plans Tuesday. I suppose by now you have all the train robbers safely tucked away in the penitentiary?"

"Not yet," he answered cheerfully.

"Not yet!" Her lifted eyebrows and the derisive flash beneath mocked politely his confidence. "By this time I should think they might be hunting big game in deepest Africa."

"They might be, but they're not."

"What about that investment in futurities you made on the train? The month is more than half up. Do you see any chance of realizing?"

"It looks now as if I might be a false prophet, but I feel way down deep that I won't. In this prophet's business confidence is half the stock in trade."

"Really. I'm very curious to know what it is you predicted. Was it something good?"

"Good for me," he nodded.

"Then I think you'll get it," she laughed. "I have noticed that it is the people that expect things--and then go out and take them--that inherit the earth these days. The meek have been dispossessed."

"I'm glad I have your good wishes."