Virginia was not the only one whom Galloway had set pondering; certain of his words spoken to the sheriff when the two faced each other on the Tecolote trail gave Norton food for thought. For the first time Jim Galloway had openly offered a bribe, one of no insignificant proportions, prefacing his offer with the remark: "I have just begun to imagine lately that I have doped you up wrong all the time." If Galloway had gone on to add: "Time was when I didn't believe I could buy you, but I have changed my mind about that," his meaning could have been no plainer. Now he held out a bribe in one hand, a threat in the other, and Norton riding on to Tecolote mused long over them both.
In Tecolote, a straggling village of many dogs and swarthy, grimy-faced children, he tarried until well after dark, making his meal of coffee, frijoles, and chili con carne, thereafter smoking a contemplative pipe. Abandoning the little lunch-room to the flies and silence he crossed the road to the saloon kept by Pete Nuñez, the brother of the man whom it was Norton's present business to make answer for a crime committed. Pete, a law-abiding citizen nowadays, principally for the reason that he had lost a leg in his younger, gayer days, swept up his crutch and swung across the room from the table where he was sitting to the bar, saying a careless "Que hay?" by way of greeting.
"Hello, Pete," Norton returned quietly. "Haven't seen Vidal lately, have you?"
Besides Vidal's brother there were a half dozen men in the room playing cards or merely idling in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp swung from the ceiling, men of the saloon-keeper's breed to the last man of them. Their eyes, the slumbrous, mystery-filled orbs of their kind, had lifted under their long lashes to regard the sheriff with seeming indifference. Pete shrugged.
"Me, I ain't seen Vidal for a mont'," he answered briefly. "I see Jim Galloway though. Galloway say," and Pete ran his towel idly back and forth along the bar, "Vidal come to la Casa Blanca to-night. I dunno," and again he shrugged.
Norton allowed himself the luxury of a mystifying smile as Pete Nuñez lifted probing eyes to his face.
"Jim Galloway has been known to lie before now, like other men," was all of the information he gave to the questioning look. "And," his face suddenly as expressionless as Pete's own, "it wouldn't be a bad bet to look for Vidal in Tres Robles, would it? Eh, Pete?"
With that he went out. Quite willing that Pete and his crowd should think what they pleased, Tres Robles lay twenty miles northeast of Tecolote, and if Pete cared to send word to Galloway that the sheriff had ridden on that way, well and good.
Half an hour later, with the deeper dark of the night settling thick and sultry over the surface of the desert lands, he rode out of town following the Tres Robles trail. He knew that Pete had come to his door and was watching; he had the vague suspicion that it was quite possible that Vidal was watching, too, with eyes smouldering with hatred. That was only a guess, not even for a man to hazard a bet upon. But the feeling that the fugitive was somewhere in Tecolote or in the mesquite thickets near abouts had been strong enough to send him travelling this way in the afternoon, would have been strong enough for him to have acted upon, searching through shack after shack, were it not that deep down in his heart he did not believe that Jim Galloway had lied. Here, while he came in at one door Vidal might slip out at another, safe among friends. But in the Casa Blanca Norton meant that matters should be different.
For an hour he rode toward the northeast. Then, turning out of the trail and reining his horse into the utter blackness offered by the narrow mouth or an arroyo, he sat still for a long time, listening, staring back through the night toward Tecolote. At last, confident that he had not been followed, he cut across the low-lying lomas marking the western horizon and in a swinging gallop rode straight toward San Juan.
He had had ample time for the shaping of his simple plans long before catching the first winking glimpse of the lights of the Casa Blanca. He left his horse under the cottonwoods, hung his spurs over the horn of the saddle, and went silently to the back of Struve's hotel. Certain that no one had seen him, he half-circled the building, came to the window which he had counted upon finding open, slipped in, and passed down the hall to Struve's room. At his light tap Struve called, "Come in," and turned toward him as the door opened. Norton closed it behind him.
"I am taking a chance that Vidal Nuñez is at Galloway's right now," he told the hotel keeper. "I am going to get him if he is. I want you to watch the back end of the Casa Blanca and see that he doesn't slip out that way. A shotgun is what you want. Blow the head off any man who doesn't stop when you tell him to. Is Tom Cutter in his room yet?"
While Struve, wasting neither time nor words, went to see, Norton unbuttoned his shirt, removed the thirty-eight-caliber revolver from the holster slung under his left arm, whirled the cylinder, and kept the gun in his left hand. In a moment Struve had returned, the deputy at his heels.
"What's this about Vidal being here?" Cutter asked sharply.
Norton explained briefly and as briefly gave Tom Cutter his orders. While Struve mounted guard at the rear, Cutter was to look out for the front of the building.
"Going in alone, are you, Rod?" Cutter shook his head. "If Vidal is in there, and Galloway and the Kid and Antone are all on the job, the chances are there's going to be something happen. Better let me come in along with you."
But Norton, his mouth grown set and grim and chary of words, shook his head. Followed by Struve and Cutter he was outside in the darkness five minutes after he had entered the hotel.
Struve, a shotgun in his hands, took his place twenty steps from the back door of the Casa Blanca, his restless eyes sweeping back and forth continually, taking stock of door and window; a lamp burning in a rear room cast its light out through a window whose shade was less than half drawn. Tom Cutter, accustomed to acting swiftly upon his superior's suggestions, listened wordlessly to the few whispered instructions, nodded, and did as he was told, effacing himself in the shadows at the corner of the building, prepared when the time came to spring out into the street whence he could command the front and one side of the Casa Blanca. Norton, before leaving Cutter, had drawn the heavy gun from the holster swinging at his belt.
"It's some time since we've had any two-handed shooting to do, Tommy," he said as his lean fingers curved to the familiar grip of the Colt 45. "But I guess we haven't forgotten how. Now, stick tight until you hear things wake up."
He was gone, turning back to the rear of the house, passing close to Struve, going on to the northeast corner, slipping quietly about it, moving like a shadow along the eastern wall. Here were two windows, both looking into the long barroom, both with their shades drawn down tight.
At the first window Norton paused, listening. From within came a man's voice, the Kid's, in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless and defiant, that and the clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nuñez's. But after Kid Rickard's jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound of a man walking across the bare floor.
"They're waiting for me," was Norton's quick thought. "Galloway knew I'd come."
He passed on, came to the second window and paused again. The brief, almost breathless silence within, which had followed the Kid's laugh, had already been dissipated by the customary Casa Blanca sounds; a guitar was strumming, chips clicked, a bottle was set heavily upon the bar, a chair scraped. Norton frowned; a moment ago something happened in there to still men's tongues. What was it? It was Galloway who gave him his answer.
"So you came, did you, Vidal?" There was a jeer in the heavy voice. "Scared to come, eh? And scared worse to stay away!" Galloway's short laugh was as unpleasant as ever Rickard's had been.
"Si; I am here," the voice of Vidal Nuñez was answering, quick, eager, sibilant with its unmistakable nervous excitement. "Pete tell me what you say an' I come." He lifted his voice abruptly, breaking into a soft Southern oath. "Like a cat, to jump through the little window an' roll on the floor an' by God, jus' in time. There is one man at the back with a gun an' one man in front an' another man . . ."
"Let 'em come," cried Galloway loudly, a heavy hand smiting a table top so that a glass jumped and fell breaking to the floor. "Only," and he sent his voice booming out warningly, "any man who chips in unasked and starts trouble in my house can take what's coming to him."
So then Vidal had just arrived, it had been his sudden entrance which had invoked the silence in the barroom. Norton merely shrugged; there had been a chance of taking Vidal alone, intercepting him. But that chance had not been one to wait for; now it was past, negligible, not to be regretted. At last he knew where Vidal Nuñez was and it was his business to make an arrest and not to wait upon further chance. The man who is not ready to go into a crowd to get his law-breaker is not the man to stand for sheriff in the southwest country.
"Coming, Galloway!" Norton's ringing shout came back in answer. Suddenly the steady pulse of his blood had been stirred, the hot hope stood high in his heart again that he and Jim Galloway were going to look into each other's eyes with guns talking and an end of a long devious trail in sight. For the moment he half forgot Vidal Nuñez whom he could fancy cowering in a corner.
Then when he knew that every man in the Casa Blanca had turned sharply at his voice he ran from the window to the street, turned the corner of the building and in at the wide front doorway. A short hall, a closed door confronting him . . . then that had been flung open and on its threshold, a gun in each hand, his hat far back on his head, his eyes on fire, he stood looking in on a half dozen men and three glinting steel barrels which, describing quick arcs, were whipped from the window toward him. A gun in Galloway's hand, one in the hand of Vidal Nuñez, the third already spitting fire as Kid Rickard's narrowed eyes shone above it. The other men had fallen back precipitately to right and left; Norton noted that Elmer Page was among them, a pace or two from Rickard's side.
The Kid, being young, had something of youth's impatience, perhaps the only reminiscence of youth left in a calloused soul. So it was that he had shot a second too soon. Norton, as both hands rose in front of him, answered Kid Rickard with the smaller-caliber gun while the Colt in his right hand was concerned impartially with Galloway and Vidal Nuñez, standing close together. The Kid cursed, his voice rose in a shriek of anger rather than pain, and he spun about and fell backward, tripping over an overturned chair.
"Shoot, Galloway!" cried Norton. "Shoot, damn you, shoot!"
Now, as for the second time that day the two men confronted each other, naked, hot hatred glaring out of their eyes, each man knew that he stood balancing a crucial second, midway between death and triumph. Jim Galloway, who never until now had come out into the open in defiance of the law, must swallow his words under the eyes of his own gang, or once and for all forsake the semi-security behind his ambush. Again issues were clear cut.
He answered the sheriff with a curse and a stream of lead. As he fired he threw himself to the side, the old trick, his gun little higher than his hip, and fired again. And shot for shot Norton answered him.
Though but half the length of a room lay between them, as yet, neither man was hurt. For no longer were they in the rich light of the swinging coal-oil lamp; the room was gathered in pitch darkness; their guns spat long tongues of vivid flame. For, just as Kid Ricard was falling, while Jim Galloway's finger was crooked to the trigger, while Antone was whipping up his gun behind the bar, there had come a shot from the card-room door shattering the lamp. Neither Norton nor Galloway, Rickard nor Vidal Nuñez, nor Antone nor any of the other men in the room saw who had fired the shot.
As the light went out Norton leaped away from the door, having little wish to stand silhouetted against the rectangle of pale light from the outer night; and, leaping, he poured in his fourth and fifth and sixth shots in the quarter where he hoped to find Galloway. But always he remembered where he had seen Elmer Page standing, and always he remembered Antone behind the bar, and Vidal Nuñez drawn back into a corner. His forty-five emptied, he jammed it back into its holster and stood rigid, staring into the blackness about him, every sense on the qui vive. Galloway had given over shooting; he might be dead or merely waiting. Vidal had held his fire, seeming frightened, uncertain, half stunned. Antone would be leaning forward, peering with frowning eyes, trying to locate him.
It swept into Norton's mind suddenly that thus, in utter and unexpected darkness, he had the upper hand. He could shoot, the law riding upon each flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal, or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell, it would be a man who richly deserved what his fate was bringing him. They, on the other hand, being many against one, must be careful which way they shot.
He had come for Vidal Nuñez. The man he wanted was yonder, but a few feet from him. Duty and desire pointed across the room to the obscure corner. He moved a cautious foot. The floor complained under his shifting weight and from Galloway's quarter came a spit of fire. Twin with it came a shot from behind the bar. That was Antone talking. And now at last came the other shot from Vidal himself.
Rod Norton's was that type of man which finds caution less to his liking than headlong action; furthermore, in the present crisis, caution had seemed the acme of foolhardiness. There are times when true wisdom lies in taking one's chance boldly, flying half-way to meet it. Now, as three bullets sang by him, he gathered himself; then, before the sharp reports had died in his ears, he sprang forward, hurling himself across the room, striking with his lifted gun as he went, missing, striking again and experiencing that grinding, crunching sensation transmitted along the metal barrel as it struck a man fair upon the head. The man went down heavily and Norton stood over him, praying that it was Vidal Nuñez.
Then it was that Julius Struve, having deserted his post at the rear, smashed through a window with the muzzle of his shotgun, sending the shade flipping up, springing back from the square of faint light as he cried out sharply:
"All right, Nort?"
"All right!" cried Norton. "I'm against the north wall; rake the other side and the bar with your shotgun if they don't step out. You and Cutter together. I've got Rickard and Nuñez out of it. Drop your gun, Galloway; lively, while you've got the chance. Antone, Struve's got a shotgun!"
Antone cursed, and with the snarl of his voice came the clatter of a revolver slammed down on the bar. Galloway cursed and fired, emptying his second gun, crazed with hatred and blind anger. Again, shot for shot Norton answered him. And again it grew very silent in the Casa Blanca.
"Out through the window, one by one, with your hands up and your guns down," shouted Struve; "or I start in. Which is it, boys?"
There was a scramble to obey, the several men who had taken no part leading the way. As they went out their forms were for a moment clearly outlined, then swallowed up in the outer darkness. At Struve's command they lined up against the wall, watched over by the muzzle of his shotgun. Antone, crying out that he was coming, followed. Elmer Page, sick and dizzy, was at Antone's heels.
Tom Cutter had gathered up some dry grass, and with that and a chance-found bit of wood started a blaze near the second window; in its wavering, uncertain light the faces of the men stood out whitely.
"Galloway is not here yet," he snapped. And, lifting his voice: "Come on, Galloway."
A crowd had gathered in the street, asking questions that went unanswered. Other hands added fuel to Cutter's fire. The increasing light at last penetrated the blackness filling the barroom.
"Come out, Galloway," said Struve coldly. "I've got you covered."
Since things were bad enough as they were, and he had no desire to make them worse and saw no opportunity to better them, Jim Galloway, his hand nursing a bleeding shoulder, stumbled awkwardly through the opening.
"Is that all of 'em, Roddy?" called Cutter. Norton didn't answer. The deputy called again. Then, while the crowd surged about door and window. Cutter came in, a revolver in his right hand, a torch of a burning fagot in his left, held high.
Vidal Nuñez was dead; not from a blow upon the head, but from a chance bullet through the heart after he had fallen. Kid Rickard, his sullen eyes wide with their pain, lay half under a poker table. Lying across the body of Nuñez, as though still guarding his prisoner, was the quiet form of Rod Norton, his face bloodlessly white save for the smear of blood which had run from the wound hidden by the close-cropped, black hair.
Ignacio Chavez, waiting to ask no questions, had raced away through the darkness to beat out a wild alarm upon his bells. Later he would learn how many were dead and would set the Captain mourning. But already had San Juan poured out her handful of citizens upon the street.
"Keep those men where they are," called Tom Cutter to Struve. "Every damned one of them; there'll be an answer wanted for to-night's work. Get a doctor, somebody; Patten or Miss Page."
Candles were brought; presently a lamp was found and set on the bar. The curious began to desert Struve and his prisoners outside, and to crowd about Cutter and the two forms lying still in the corner. Kid Rickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little away and grew quiet, half propped up against the wall. Struve, as the fire of fagots and grass began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the way back into the barroom and herded five other men after him, the shotgun promising a mutilated body to any man of them who sought to run for it.
"Nuñez is dead," reported the deputy sheriff, getting up from his knees. "Norton is alive and that's about all. A shot along the side of the head."
He turned slowly toward Galloway who, with steady hands and his face set in hard, inscrutable lines, was pouring himself a generous glass of whiskey.
"Looks like you'd got him, Jim," he said harshly, his eyes glittering. "And it looks like I'd got you. Where I want you, by God!"
Galloway drank his whiskey and made no reply. He was thinking, thinking fast. His eyes were never still now, but roved from Rod Norton's white face to the faces of Tom Cutter, Struve, and the other men gathering in the room.
Borne upon one of the Casa Blanca's doors Norton was carried to Struve's hotel, the nearest place where an attempt could be made to care for him. Word came in that Virginia Page had been summoned upon one of her rare calls and was in Las Estrellas. Patten, however, would be on hand in a moment. It was suggested that Kid Rickard also be carried to the hotel. But he himself asked to be left where he was until Patten came, and Cutter raised no objection. It was clear that the Kid was too badly hurt to think of making an escape, were such his desire.
Galloway and Antone alone were put under arrest, the others merely advised to be on hand if they were wanted later. Galloway coolly demanded the charge against him.
"Resisting an officer is as good as any right now," snapped Cutter.
As quiet claimed the town again Caleb Patten became the most important figure in San Juan. At such moments he seemed to swell visibly. He drove the curious from the room while he examined the unconscious sheriff and, when he had finished, merely shook his head, looked grave, and refused to commit himself. He ordered Norton undressed and put to bed, went down the street to see Kid Rickard, probed the wound in the upper chest, ordered him to bed, and returned to Norton at the hotel.
"Well?" asked John Engle who had arrived, talked with Struve, and now looked anxiously to Patten. Patten shrugged.
"Heavy-caliber bullet ripped along the side of his head," he said thoughtfully. "I am going to make a second examination now. Doubtless just the shock stunned him. That or striking his head as he pitched forward; there's another slight wound, a scalp wound, showing where his head hit as he fell."
A moment later Tom Cutter came in hastily, stood for a little staring with frowning, troubled eyes at the quiet form on the bed, and went away, tugging at his lip, his frown deepening. He had his hands full to-night, had Tom Cutter, and no one but himself knew how he wanted Rod Norton to tell him just what to do, to show him the way to make no mistake. Leaving the room he had gone no farther than the front door when he swung about and returned.
"May I have a word with you, Mr. Engle?" he asked.
Engle nodded and followed him silently. Out in the street, in the full light of Struve's porch-lamp, Cutter stopped, glancing about him to make sure that he was not overheard.
"You know all about the shooting of Brocky Lane up in the mountains," he said hurriedly. "Rod told me you did. Well, I just gathered in Moraga!"
"Moraga?" muttered Engle. "He has seen Galloway, then? And told him all about our knowing the rifles were cached in the old caves?"
"I found him at the Casa Blanca," said Cutter, the worried look in his eyes. "Somebody shot out the light when the mix-up started, you know. I've a notion it was Moraga. He was in one of the little card-rooms . . . putting on his shoes! I got his gun; he'd fired just one shot. The muzzle of it was bloody."
"If he has told Galloway. . . ."
"But I don't believe he has. Struve says that just as Norton started things he saw a man run in from the cottonwoods and duck into the house. It was Struve's job to see that nobody got out and he let him go by. If it wasn't Moraga, who was it? And, when I grabbed him just now, the first thing he said was: 'I want to talk with Galloway.'"
"You didn't let him?" demanded Engle quickly.
"No. A couple of the boys have walked him off down the road. I've got Galloway and Antone in the jail. Now, what I want is some advice. What am I going to do with this job until Rod Norton comes to and takes a hand . . . if he ever does," he muttered heavily.
"It's clear that you've got to keep Moraga away from Galloway; if they haven't already had a chance to talk it's a pure Godsend and it's up to you that they don't get that chance."
"Yes,", admitted Cutter slowly. "But I'm the first man to admit that I'm all muggled up. What did Moraga have his shoes off for? If he shot out the light, why did he do it? And how'd he get blood on his gun?"
Engle shook his head.
"All questions for the district attorney later, Tom," he answered. "But, if you want any advice from me, here it is: Get Moraga out of the way on the jump. He is supposed to be in jail in the next county; he must have broken out. Send a man to Las Palmas to telephone to Sheriff Roberts; send Moraga along with him. And, whatever you do, keep Jim Galloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against him to-night."
"That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do, eh?"
"Sure of it," said Engle promptly. "Find out, if you can, whether Moraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the house to let my wife and Florrie know what has happened."
Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and, leaving his wife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel.
"I've done all that any one could do for him," said Patten, as though defending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. "He's in pretty bad shape, Engle. Oh, I guess I can pull him through, but at that it's going to be a close squeak. Lucky I was right on hand, though." And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, of traumatism superinducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made no impression on the banker.
"You mentioned two wounds," Engle reminded him. "The one made by the bullet and another. . . ."
"By his head striking as he fell? Yes; that would have completed the work of the first shock in knocking him unconscious. But it is a negligible affair now; he wouldn't know anything about it in the morning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since the other injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowed along the outer surface of the skull, I think that I can promise you he'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, but I've made cold compresses do."
Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before, on his back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white, a bandage about his head. A lump came into the banker's throat and he turned away. For he remembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton had never regained consciousness . . . and that the blow then as now had been struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was upon him that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Caleb Patten admitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finally brightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of the flatlands lying beyond Tecolote the wounded man at Struve's hotel lay as he had done all night giving no sign to tell whether he was life's or death's.
The eyes of San Juan were upon Caleb Patten throughout the night and during the long hours of the following day. Under them his inflated ego grew further distended while, waxing more technical than ever, he explained how a man in Rod Norton's condition could live and yet lie like a man dead. So prolific and involved were his medical phrases that men like John Engle and Struve began to ask themselves if Patten understood his case. When, after twelve hours, the wounded man awoke to a troubled consciousness Patten's relief was scarcely less visible than that of Norton's friends. Patten felt his prestige taking unto itself new wings and immediately grew more wisely verbose than ever. It was a rare privilege to have the most talked of and generally liked man of the community under his hands; it was wine to Patten's soul to have that man show signs of recovering under his skill.
So he drove well-wishers from the room, drew the shades, commanded quiet and came and went eternally, doing nothing whatever and appearing to be fighting, sleeves rolled up, for a threatened life. Long before noon there were those who had laughed at Patten before, but who now accused themselves of having failed to do him justice.
Virginia Page had remained all night with her patient in Las Estrellas. The first rumor she had of the fight in the Casa Blanca was borne to her ears by Ignacio's bell as she rode back toward San Juan. Only a few hours ago she had talked with Galloway, watching him banter with Florrie Engle; but a little before that, earlier in the same day, she had seen Rod Norton. Before she galloped up to the old Mission garden her heart was beating excitedly, and she was asking herself, a little fearfully: "Is it Galloway or is it Rod Norton?" For she was so sure that in the end Ignacio would ring the Captain for one of them.
Ignacio told her the story. Norton was lying in the hotel, unconscious, Patten working over him; Jim Galloway and Antone were in the little jail and soon would be taken to the county-seat; Kid Rickard was shot through the lung but would live, Patten said; Vidal Nuñez, over whom the whole thing had started, was dead.
"If mi amigo Roderico die," mumbled Ignacio, "it will be two Nortones, two sheriffs, that die because of Galloway. If Roderico live, then the next time he will kill Galloway. You will see, señorita."
She made no answer as she rode slowly down the street. She was thinking how, only a few weeks ago, she had heard the bells ring for the first time, how then Galloway and Norton had been but meaningless names to her, how she had been little moved by either the sound of pistol-shots or the Captain's heavy tolling. Now things were different. Just in what were they "different" and to what degree? She could not answer her own question before she was at the hotel.
Struve came immediately, noted her pale face, attributed it to a sleepless night, and made her take a cup of coffee. He rounded out the information she already had from Ignacio. Norton was still unconscious though, only a few minutes ago, Patten had reported signs of improvement. Mrs. Engle had been with him, was still there acting nurse; he was being given every attention possible.
Patten himself entered, drawn by the aroma of coffee. He nodded carelessly to the girl and remarked to Struve, with a flash of triumph in his eyes, that at last he had "brought him around." Norton was very weak, sick, dizzy, perhaps not yet out of danger. But Patten had won in the initial skirmish with old man Death.
At least, so Struve was given to feel. Virginia, with a quick look at Patten's complacent face, was moved with sudden, almost insistent longing, that Rod Norton's life might be given into her own hands rather than remain in the pudgy hands of a man she at once disliked as an individual and failed to admire as a physician. For she had needed no long residence in San Juan to form her own estimate of the man's ability . . . or lack of ability. But plainly this was Patten's case, not hers; she got up from the table and went into her own room.
Elmer she found lying fully dressed upon a couch in her office, sleeping heavily. She stood over him a moment, her eyes tender; he was still, would always be, her baby brother. Then she went to her own room and threw herself down upon her bed, worn out, anxious, vaguely fearful for the future.
It was a long day for San Juan. Mrs. Engle came now and then to Virginia's room to wipe her eyes and force a hopeful smile; Florrie ran in like a young tempest to weep copiously and hyperbolically invest poor dear Roddy with all imaginable heroic attributes; Engle and Struve and Tom Cutter were grave-eyed and distressed. Every hour Ignacio came to the hotel to ask quietly for news.
In his own way, it appeared that Elmer Page was as deeply concerned as any one. It was long before he told Virginia that he had been in the Casa Blanca when the shooting occurred; haltingly he gave her his version of it.
"Don't you think, Elmer," suggested the girl somewhat wearily, "that you have gotten hold of the wrong end of things here? I mean in choosing your friends? Certainly after this you will have nothing to do with men like Galloway and Rickard?"
Ten minutes' talk with Elmer gave her a deeper understanding of his attitude than she had been able to guess until now. Spontaneously he had leaned toward Kid Rickard because the Kid was a "killer" and Elmer was a boy; in other words, because young Page's imagination made of Rickard a truly picturesque figure. Since Rickard admired Jim Galloway as he had never known how to admire aught else that breathed and walked, Elmer's eyes had from the first rested approvingly upon the massive figure of Casa Blanca's owner. That both Galloway and Rickard were fighting against persecution, were merely individuals wronged by the law and too fearlessly independent to submit to the high hand of sheriff or judge, was easily implanted in the boy's mind. Yesterday his fancies were ready to make heroes of Galloway and his crowd, to make of Norton a meddler hiding behind the bulwark of his office, and hounding those who were too manly to step aside for him. But now Elmer was all at sea, no land in sight.
"A gun in each hand, Sis," he cried warmly, his cheeks flushed, as the almost constantly recurring picture formed again in his memory. "And if you could have only seen his eyes! Talk about hiding behind anything . . . no sir! And him only one against Galloway and the Kid and Nuñez and a whole room full."
Here was Elmer's trouble drawn to the surface; he was touched with leaping admiration for the man who lay now in the darkened room, he couldn't admire both Norton, the sheriff, and Galloway and Rickard, the sheriff's sworn enemies! Which way should Elmer Page turn? Virginia very wisely held her tongue.
Tom Cutter, having conferred with Engle and Struve, left San Juan in the early afternoon, convoying his prisoners to the greater security of the county jail. It seemed the wisest step, the one which Norton would have taken. Besides, Galloway insisted upon it and upon being allowed to send a message to his lawyer.
"I am willing to stand trial," said Galloway indifferently. "I'll arrange for bail to-morrow and be back to-morrow night."
The question which Tom Cutter, Struve, and Engle all asked of themselves and of each other, "Did Moraga get his chance to talk with Galloway?" went unanswered. There was nothing to do but wait upon the future to know that, unless Moraga, now on his way back to Sheriff Roberts, could be made to talk. And Moraga was not given to garrulity.
Meantime Patten brought hourly reports of Norton. He was still in danger, to be sure; but he was doing as well as could be expected. No one must go into the room except Mrs. Engle as nurse. Norton was fully conscious, but forbidden to talk; he recognized those about him, his eyes were clear, his temperature satisfactory, his strength no longer waning. He had partaken of a bit of nourishment and to-morrow, if there were no unlooked-for complications, would be able to speak with John Engle for whom he had asked.
During the days which followed, days in which Rod Norton lay quiet in a darkened room, Virginia Page was conscious of having awakened some form of interest in Caleb Patten. His eyes followed her when she came and went, and, when she surprised them, were withdrawn swiftly, but not before she had seen in them a speculative thoughtfulness. While she noted this she gave it little thought, so occupied was her mind with other matters. She had postponed, as long as she could, a talk with Julius Struve, her spirit galled that she must in the end go to him "like a beggar," as she expressed it to herself. But one day, her head erect, she followed the hotel keeper into his office. In the hallway she encountered Patten.
"May I have a word with you?" Patten asked.
But Virginia had steeled herself to the interview with Struve and would no longer set it aside, even for a moment.
"If you care to wait on the veranda," she told Patten, "I'll be out in a minute. I want to see Mr. Struve now."
Patten stood aside and watched her pass, the shrewdly questioning look in his eyes. When she disappeared in the office he remained where she had left him, listening. When she began to speak with Struve, her voice rapid and hinting at nervousness, he came a quiet step nearer the door she had closed after her.
"I am ashamed of myself, Mr. Struve," said Virginia, coming straight to the point. "I owe you already for a month's board and room rent for myself and Elmer. I . . ."
"That's perfectly all right, Miss Virginia," said Struve hurriedly. "I know the sort of job you've got on your hands making collections. If you can wait I am willing to do so. Glad to do so, in fact."
Patten, fingering his little mustache, then letting his thick fingers drop to the diamond in his tie, smiled with satisfaction. Smiling, he tiptoed down the hall and went out upon the veranda where he smoked his cigar serenely. When Virginia came out to him her face was flaming. Had he not beard Struve's words, he would have thought that his answer to her apology had been an angry demand for immediate payment. Patten failed to understand how the girl's fine, independent nature writhed in a situation all but intolerable. That she appreciated gratefully Struve's quick kindness did not minimize her own mortification.
Patten watched her seat herself; then he launched himself into his subject. Virginia listened at first with faint interest, then with quickened wonder. For the life of her she could not tell if the little man were seeking to flatter or insult her.
"I have leased an old, deserted ranch-house just on the edge of town," he told her. "Got it for a song, too. Some first-rate land goes with it; I'll probably buy the whole thing before long. There's plenty of good water. Now, what am I up to, eh? Just the same thing all the time, if you want to know. And that means making money." Leaning forward he knocked the ash from his cigar and brought himself confidentially nearer.
"An open-air sanatorium," he announced triumphantly. "For tuberculosis patients. There are lots of them," and he waved his arm in a wide half circle, "coming out of the East on the run, scared to death, and with more or less money in their pockets. It's a big proposition, a sure money-getter."
He grew more animated than she had ever dreamed he could be, as he sketched his plans. While she was wondering why he had come to her with them he gave his explanation, made her his double offer. Then it was that she was puzzled to know whether he meant to compliment her or merely to insult her.
In a word he assured her from the heights of superiority to which he had ascended these last few days of importance, the practice of medicine was no woman's work at best; certainly not in a land like this, where a man's endurance, breadth or mind, and keener innate ability to cope with big situations were indicated. No work for a slip of a girl like Virginia Page. Of that Caleb Patten assured her unhesitatingly. But there was work for such as her and in a place which he would create for her. Fairly bewildered at his audacity she found herself listening to his suggestion that she marry Caleb Patten and become a sort of head nurse in an institution which he would found!
In spite of her she was moved to sudden, impulsive laughter. She had not meant to laugh at the man who might be sincere, who, it was possible, was merely a fool. But laugh she did, so that her mirth reached Rod Norton where he lay upon his bed and made him stir restlessly.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Patten, a flush in his cheeks.
"I mean," stammered Virginia at last, "that I thank you very much, Dr. Patten, but that I can avail myself of neither the opportunity of being your wife or your head nurse. As for my inability to do for myself what I have set out to accomplish . . . well, I am not afraid yet. There is work to be done here and I don't quite agree with you that it's all man's work. There's always a little left over for a woman, you know," she added brightly.
But Patten was obviously angered. He flung to his feet and glared down at her. Perhaps it had not entered his thought that she could make other than the answer he wanted; it had been very clear to him that he was offering to become responsible for one who was embarked upon a voyage already destined to failure, that he would support her, merely doing as many other men of his ilk did and make her work for all that she got.
"It's silly nonsense, your thinking you can make a living here," he said irritably. "I'm already established, I'm a man, I can have all of the cases I want, you'll get only a few breeds who haven't a dollar to the dozen of them. If you are already broke and can't even pay for your room and board . . ."
"Who told you that?" she asked quickly.
"I can hear, can't I?" he demanded coarsely. "Didn't you go just now to beg Struve to hold you over? And . . ."
She slipped out of her chair and stood a moment staring coldly and contemptuously at him. Then she was gone, leaving Patten watching her departure incredulously.
"A man who hasn't any more sense than Caleb Patten," she cried within herself, "has no business with a physician's license. It's a sheer wonder he didn't kill Roderick Norton!"
Already she had forgotten her words with Struve, or rather the matter for the present was shoved aside in her mind by another. She had come here to make good, she had her fight before her, and she was going to make good. She had to . . . for herself, for her own pride, for Elmer's sake. She went straight to Elmer and made him sit down and listen while she sketched actual conditions briefly and emphatically.
He was old enough to do something for himself in the world, continued idleness did him no earthly good and might do him no end of harm morally, mentally, and physically. He had been her baby brother long enough; it was time that he became a man. She had supported him until now, asking nothing of him in return save that he kept out of mischief a certain percentage of the time. Now he was going to work and help out. He could go to John Engle and get something to do upon one of Engle's ranches.
Somewhat to her surprise Elmer responded eagerly. He had been thinking the matter over and it appealed to him. What he did not tell her was that he had seen some of the vaqueros riding in from one of the outlying ranges, lean, brown, quick-eyed men who bestrode high-headed mounts and who wore spurs, wide hats, shaggy chaps, and who, perhaps, carried revolvers hidden away in their hip pockets, men who drank freely, spent their money as freely at dice and cards, and who, all in all, were a picturesque crowd. Elmer took up his hat and went down to the bank and had a talk with John Engle. Virginia's eyes followed him hopefully.
That day Norton was allowed for the first time to receive callers. He had his talk with Engle, limited to five minutes by Patten who hung about curiously until Norton said pointedly that he wanted to speak privately with the banker. Later Florrie came with her mother, bringing an immense armful of roses culled by her own hands, excited, earnest, entering the shaded room like a frightened child, speaking only in hushed whispers.
"Won't you come in too for a moment, Virginia?" asked Mrs. Engle. "Roddy will be glad to see you; he has asked about you."
But Virginia made an excuse; it was Patten's case and after what had occurred between herself and Patten she had no intention of so much as seeming to overstep the professional lines. The following day, however, she did go to see him. Patten himself, stiff and boorish, asked her to. His patient had asked for her several times, knowing that she was in the building and marking how she made an exception and refused to look in on him while all of his other friends were doing so, some of them coming many miles. Patten told her that Norton was not well by any means yet and that he did not intend to have him worried up over an imagined slight. So Virginia did as she was bid.
Mrs. Engle was in the room, bending over the bed with a dampened towel to lay upon Norton's forehead; he showed a sign of fever and his head ached constantly. He looked about quickly as the girl came in, his hand stirring a little, offering itself. She took it by way of greeting and sat down in the chair drawn up at his side.
"It's good of you to come!" he said quickly, his eyes brightening. "I was beginning to wonder if I had offended you in some way? You see, everybody has run in but you. A man gets spoiled when he's laid up like this, doesn't he? Especially when it's the first time he can remember when he has stuck in bed for upward of twenty-four hours running."
Despite her familiarity with the swift ravages of illness she received a positive shock as she looked at him; she had visualized him during these latter days as she had last seen him, brown, vitally robust, the embodiment of lean, clean strength. Now sunless inaction had set its mark in his skin which had already grown sallow; his eyes burned into her own, his hand fell weakly to the coverlet as she removed her own, his fingers plucking nervously. And yet she summoned a cheerful smile to answer his.
"I was satisfied just in hearing that you were doing well," she said. "And I know that the fewer people a sick man sees the better for him."
He moved his head restlessly back and forth on his pillow.
"Not for a man like me," he told her. "I'm not used to this sort of business. Just lying here with my eyes shut or staring at the ceiling, which is worse, drives a man mad. I told Patten to-day that if he didn't let me see folks I'd get up and go out if I had to crawl."
Virginia laughed, determined to be cheerful.
"I am afraid that you make a rather troublesome patient, don't you?" she asked lightly.
Norton made no answer but lay motionless save for the constant plucking at his coverlet, his eyes moodily fixed upon the wall. Mrs. Engle, finding the water-pitcher empty and saying that she would be back in two seconds, went out to fill it. Promptly Norton's eyes returned to Virginia's face, resting there steadily.
"I've been dizzy and sick and half out of my head a whole lot," he said abruptly. "I've been thinking of you most of the time, dreaming about you, climbing cliffs with you. . . ."
He broke off suddenly, but did not remove his eyes from hers. It was she who turned away, pretending to find it necessary to adjust the window-curtain. It was impossible to sit quietly while he looked at her that way, his eyes all without warning filling with a look for any girl to read a look of glowing admiration, almost a look of pure love-making. Norton sighed and again his head moved restlessly on his pillow.
"I've had time to think here of late," he said after a little. "More time to think than I've ever had before in my life. About everything; myself and Jim Galloway and you. . . . I have decided to send word to the district attorney to let Galloway go," he added, again watching her. "I am not going to appear against him and there's no case if I don't."
"But . . ." she began, wondering.
"There are no buts about it. Suppose I can get him convicted, which I doubt; he'd get a light sentence, would appeal, at most would be out of the way a couple of years or so. And then it would all be to do over again. No; I want him out in the open, where he can go as far as he wants to go. And then . . ."
She saw how his body stiffened as he braced himself with his feet against the foot-board.
"We won't talk shop," she said gently. "It isn't good for you. Don't think about such things any more than you have to."
"I've got to think about something," he said impatiently. "Can I think about you?"
"Why not?" she answered as lightly as she had spoken before.
"Maybe that isn't good for me either," he answered.
"Nonsense. It's always good for us to think about our friends."
His eyes wandered from hers, rested a moment upon the little table near his bedhead and came back to her, narrowing a little.
"Will you set a chair against that window-shade?" he asked. "The light at the side hurts my eyes."
It was a natural request and she turned naturally to do what he asked. But, even with her back turned, she knew that he had reached out swiftly for something that lay on the table, that he had thrust it out of sight under his pillow.
Mrs. Engle returned and Virginia, staying another minute, said good-by. As she went out she glanced down at the table. In her room she asked herself what it was that he had snatched and hidden. It seemed a strange thing to do and the question perplexed her; while she attached no importance to it, it was there like a pebble in one's shoe, refusing to be ignored.
That night, just as she was going to sleep, she knew. Out of a half doze she had visualized the table with its couple of bottles, a withering rose, a scrap of note-paper, a fountain pen. The pen . . . it was Patten's . . . had evidently leaked and had been wiped carelessly upon the sheet of paper, left lying with the paper half wrapped around it. She had noted carelessly a few scrawled words in Patten's slovenly hand. And she knew that it had been removed while she turned her back, removed by a hand which, in its haste, had slipped the pen with it under the pillow.
She went to sleep incensed with herself that she gave the matter another thought. But she kept asking herself what it was that Patten had written that Roderick Norton did not want her to read.