The Coyote Part 20

Two thousand dollars will be paid for the capture of the bandits who are responsible for the robberies of Dixie Mine messengers in the last few months.

DIXIE MILLING & MINING CO., George Sautee, Manager.

Rathburn now knew exactly what Carlisle had meant when he had referred to the Dixie pay-roll taking wings. He had, however, suspected it. The holdup of the truck driver also was explained. Rathburn smiled. It was a peculiar ruse for the mines manager to resort to. Could not the pay-roll be sent to the mines under armed guard? Rathburn's eyes were dreamy when he looked at the deputy.

"All right, in you go," said Mannix, as the jailer unlocked the heavy, barred door from the inside.

He led Rathburn to one of the single cells, of which there were six on one side of the jail room proper.

"Maybe you'll be ready to talk in the morning," he said, as he locked his prisoner in.

"Morning might be too late," Rathburn observed, taking tobacco and papers from his s.h.i.+rt pocket.

"What do you mean by that?" Mannix asked sharply.

"I might change my mind."

"About talking, eh? Well, we'll find a way to make you change it back again."

"You're a grateful cuss," said Rathburn, grinning.

Mannix scowled. It was plain he was not sure of his man, although he was trying to convince himself that he was.

"I don't get you," he said growlingly.

"No? Didn't you hear that fellow Carlisle say I saved your life by not drawing?"

"He'd have got you if you'd tried to draw. That's what he thought you was going to do. You saved your skin by grabbing the floor."

Rathburn wet the paper of his cigarette and sealed the end. "I'm wondering," he mused, as he snapped a match into flame, with a thumb nail and lit the weed.

"It's about time," said the deputy grimly.

"I'm wondering," said Rathburn, in a soft voice, exhaling a thin streamer of smoke, "if he'd have got me."

Mannix grunted, looked at him curiously, and then turned abruptly on his heel and left. Rathburn could not see the door, but he heard the big key grate in the lock, and then the jail room echoed to the clang of hard metal and the door swung shut again.

Rathburn sat down on the bunk which was to serve as his bed. He smoked his brown-paper cigarette slowly and with great relish while he stared, not through the bars to where the dim light of a lamp showed, but straight at the opposite steel wall of his cell. His eyes were thoughtful, dreamy, his brow was puckered.

"An' there's that," he muttered as he threw away the stub of his smoke and began to roll another. "Somebody's been playing the Dixie Queen for a meal ticket. That sign said 'robberies.' That means more'n one.

The truck driver was the last. Two thousand reward. An' me headed for the desert where I belong. What stopped me? I reckon I know."

He smiled grimly as he remembered the insolent challenge in Carlisle's eyes and the reference to the bath.

After a time Rathburn stretched out on the bunk, pulled his hat over his face, and dozed.

He sat up with a catlike movement as a persistent tapping on the bars of his cell reached his ears. Blinking in the half light he saw Carlisle's dark features.

"Well, now's your chance to smoke me up good an' plenty an' get away with it," said Rathburn cheerfully. "I'm shy my gun which the sheriff has borrowed."

"You figure he's just borrowed it?" sneeringly inquired Carlisle.

Rathburn rose and surveyed his visitor. "I reckon I've got to tolerate you," he drawled. "I can't pick my company in here."

"I've got your number," snarlingly replied Carlisle in a low voice.

Rathburn sauntered close to the bars, rolling a cigarette.

"If you have, Carlisle, you've got a winning number," he said evenly.

"Whatever your play is here, I dunno," said Carlisle; "but you won't get away with it as easy as you did over the range in Dry Lake."

Rathburn's eyes never flickered as he coolly lit his cigarette with a steady hand. "You're plumb full of information, eh, Carlisle?"

"I was over there an' heard about how you stuck up that joint an'

tried to blame it on some kid by the name of Lamy," said Carlisle, watching Rathburn closely.

"You sure that was the way of it?" asked Rathburn casually.

"No," replied the other. "I know the kid stuck up the joint an' you took the blame to keep him under cover. I don't know your reasons, but I guess you don't want the facts known. You broke jail. They ain't forgot _that_ over in Dry Lake. There's a reward out for you over there, an I wouldn't be surprised if there was some money on your head in Arizona, Coyote!"

Rathburn's eyes were points of red between narrowed lids.

"The Coyote!" said Carlisle in a hoa.r.s.e voice of triumph. "An' the way it looks I'm the only one hereabouts that knows it."

"I told you you was plumb full of information," said Rathburn.

"The Coyote has a bit of a record, they tell me," Carlisle leered.

"There's more'n one sheriff would pay a pretty price to get him safe, eh?"

"Just what's your idea in telling _me_ all this, Carlisle; why don't you tell what you know to Mannix, say?"

"Maybe I'm just teasing you along."

"Not a chance, Carlisle. I know your breed."

The other's face darkened, and his eyes glittered as he peered in through the bars.

"What's _your_ breed?" he asked sneeringly.

"I don't have to tell you that, Carlisle. You _know_!" said Rathburn with a taunting laugh.

Carlisle struggled with his anger for a brief spell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

"I ain't going to poke at you in a cage," he said in a more civil tone; "an' I ain't going to tell anybody what I know. Remember that."

"I ain't the forgetting kind," Rathburn flung after him as he walked swiftly away.

Again Rathburn sat on the edge of the bunk and smoked and thought.