The Bells of San Juan Part 19

"I know. I wanted him back. I wanted him free and unhampered. He'll be bolder than ever now, won't he, if this case is dropped? He's come out a little into the open already, he'll be tempted out a little farther. There'll be more of his work soon, a robbery here or there, and he will grow so sure of himself that he'll get careless. Then I'll get him."

"But have you the right?" she asked quickly. "Knowing him a lawbreaker, have you the right to allow him to go farther and farther, just because in the end you hope to get him?"

He met her look with a smile which puzzled her.

"I'll answer your question when you define right and wrong for me," he said quietly.

They grew silent together, watching the gradual sinking of day into twilight and early dusk. Norton, for all his vaunted ravings, had grown thoughtful; Virginia turning her eyes toward him while his were staring out beyond the house-tops saw in them a look of deep, frowning speculation. And through this look, like a little fire gleaming through a fog, was another look whose meaning baffled her.

"What do you think of Patten?" he asked.

Startled by his abruptness, characteristic of him though it was to-day, she asked in puzzled fas.h.i.+on:

"What do you mean?"

"Not as a man," he said, withdrawing his gaze from the sunset and bestowing it gravely upon her. "As a physician. Do you size him up as capable or as something of a quack?"

She hesitated. But finally she made the only reply possible.

"Of course you don't expect any answer, knowing that you should not come to one member of a profession for an estimate of another. And, besides, you realize that I know nothing whatever of Dr. Patten, either as a man or as a physician."

He laughed softly.

"Hedging, pure, unadulterated hedging! I didn't look for that from you. Shall I tell you what we both think of him? He is a farce and a fake, and I rather think that I am going to run him out of the State pretty soon. . . . What would you say of a doctor who couldn't tell the difference between a wound made by a man b.u.mping his head when he fell and by a smas.h.i.+ng blow with a gun-barrel? Patten doesn't guess yet that it was the blow Moraga gave me the other night which came so close to ringing down the sable curtains for me."

"Moraga?" she asked with quickened interest. "Not the same Moraga who shot Brocky Lane?"

"The same little old Moraga," he a.s.sured her lightly. "You needn't mention it abroad, of course; I don't think Galloway got a chance to talk with him and we are not sure yet that he even knows Moraga was here. But I know somebody put me out in the dark by hammering me over the head; and Tom Cutter found blood on Moraga's revolver. But we wander far afield. Coming back to Patten, do we agree that he is something of a dub?"

"I'd rather not discuss him."

"Exactly. And I, being in the talkative way, am going to tell you that he has made blunders before now; that at least one man died under his nice little fat hands who shouldn't have died outside of jail; that long ago I had my suspicions and began inst.i.tuting inquiries; that now I am fully prepared to learn that Caleb Patten has no more right to an M.D. after his name than I have."

"You must be mistaken. I hope you are. Men used to do that sort of thing, but under existing laws . . ."

"Under existing laws men do a good many things in and about San Juan which they shouldn't do. I have found out that there was a Caleb Patten who was a young doctor; that there was a Charles Patten, his brother, who was a young scamp; that they both lived in Baltimore a few years ago; that from Baltimore they both went hastily no man knows where. This gentleman whom we have with us might be either one of them. . . . Here comes Ignacio. _Que hay_, Ignacio!"

"_Que hay_, Roderico?" responded Ignacio, coming to lean languidly against the veranda post. He removed his hat elaborately, his liquid eyes doing justice to Virginia's dainty charm. "_Buenos tardes, senorita_," he greeted her.

"What is new, Ignacio?" queried Norton, "No bells for you to ring for the last ten days! You grow fat in idleness, _amigo mio_."

Ignacio sighed and rolled his cigarette.

"What is new, you ask? No? _Bueno_, this is new!" He lifted his eyes suddenly and they were sparkling as with suppressed excitement.

"The Devil himself has made a visit to San Juan. _Si, senor; si, senorita_. It is so."

Virginia smiled; Norton gravely asked the explanation. Why should his satanic majesty come to San Juan?

"Why? _Quien sabe_?" Ignacio shrugged all responsibility from his lazy shoulders. "But he came and more bad will come from his visit, more and more of evil things. One knows. _Seguro que si_; one knows.

But I will tell you and the senorita; no one else knows of it. It was while in the Casa Blanca men are shooting, while Roderico Nortone will make his arrest of poor Vidal who is dead now." He crossed himself and drew a thoughtful puff from his cigarette. "I run fast to ring the bells. I come into the garden and it is dark. I come under the bells.

And while my hand cannot find the rope . . . _Si, senor y senorita_! . . . before I touch the rope the Captain begins to ring!

Just a little; not long; low and quiet and . . . angry! And then he stop and I s.h.i.+ver. It is hard not to run out of the garden. But I cross myself and find the ropes and make all the bells dance. But I know; it was the Devil who was before me."

CHAPTER XV

THE KING'S PALACE

Not only was Galloway back in San Juan but, as Norton had predicted of him, he appeared to have every a.s.surance that he stood in no unusual danger. There had been a fight in a dark room and one man had been killed, certain others wounded. The dead man was Galloway's friend, hence it was not to be thought that Galloway had killed him. Kid Rickard was another friend. As for the wound Rod Norton had received, who could swear that this man or that had given it to him?

"The chances are," Galloway had already said in many quarters, "that Tom Cutter, getting excited, popped over his own sheriff."

True, it was quite obvious that a charge lay at Galloway's door, that of harboring a fugitive from justice and of resisting an officer. But with Galloway's money and influence, with the shrewdest technical lawyer in the State retained, with ample perjured testimony to be had as desired, the law-breaker saw no reason for present uneasiness.

Perhaps more than anything else he regretted the death of Vidal Nunez and the wounding of Kid Rickard. For these matters vitally touched Jim Galloway and his swollen prestige among his henchmen; he had thrown the cloak of his protection about Vidal, had summoned him, promised him all safety . . . and Vidal was dead. He knew that men spoke of this over and over and hushed when he came upon them; that Vidal's brother, Pete, grumbled and muttered that Galloway was losing his grip, that soon or late he would fall, that falling he would drag others down with him.

More than ever before the whole county watched for the final duello between Galloway and Norton. In half a dozen small towns and mining-camps men laid bets upon the result.

For the first time, also, there was much barbed comment and criticism of the sheriff. He had gotten this man and that, it was true. And yet, after all this time, he seemed to be no nearer than at the beginning to getting the man who counted. There were those who recalled the killing of Bisbee of Las Palmas, and reminded others that there had been no attempt at prosecution. Now there had come forth from the Casa Blanca fresh defiance and lawlessness and still Jim Galloway came and went as he pleased. Those who criticised said that Norton was losing his nerve, or else that he was merely incompetent when measured by the yardstick of swift, incisive action wedded to capability.

"If he can't get Jim Galloway, let him step out of the way and give the chance to a man who can," was said many times and in many ways. Even John Engle, Julius Struve, Tom Cutter, and Brocky Lane came to Norton at one time or another, telling him what they had heard, urging him to give some heed to popular clamor, and to begin legal action.

"Put the skids under him, Roddy," pleaded Brocky Lane. "We can't slide him far the first trip, maybe. But a year or so in jail will break his grip here."

But Norton shook his head. He was playing the game his way.

"The rifles are still in the cache," he told Brocky. "He is getting ready, as we know; further, just as my friends are beginning to find fault with me, so are his hangers-on beginning to wonder if they haven't tied to the wrong man. Just to save his own face he'll have to start something pretty p.r.o.nto. And we know about where he is going to strike. It's up to us to hold our horses, Brocky."

Brocky growled a bit, but went away more than half-persuaded. He called at the hotel, paid his respects to Virginia, and affording her a satisfaction which it was hard for her to conceal, also paid her for her services rendered him in the cliff-dweller's cave.

Often enough the man who tilts with the law is in most things not unlike his fellows, different alone perhaps in the one essential that he is born a few hundreds of years late in the advance of civilization.

Going about that part of his business which has its claims to legitimacy, mingling freely with his fellows, he fails to stand out distinctly from them as a monster. Given the slow pa.s.sing of uneventful time, and it becomes hard and harder to consider him as a social menace. When the man is of the Jim Galloway type, his plans large, his patience long, he may even pa.s.s out from the shadow of a gallows-tree and return to occupy his former place in the quiet community life, while his neighbors are p.r.o.ne to forget or condone.

As other days came and slipped by and the weeks grew out of them, Galloway's was a pleasant, untroubled face to be seen on the street, at the post-office, behind his own bar, on the country roads. He ignored any animosity which San Juan might feel for him. If a man looked at him stonily, Galloway did not care to let it be seen that he saw; if a woman turned out to avoid him, no evidence that he understood darkened his eyes. He had a good-humored word to speak always; he lifted his hat to the banker's wife, as he had always done; he mingled with the crowd when there were "exercises" at the little schoolhouse; he warmly congratulated Miss Porter, the crabbed old-maid teacher, on the work she had accomplished and made her wonder fleetingly if there wasn't a bit of good in the man, after all. Perhaps there was; there is in most men. And Florrie Engle was beginning to wonder the same thing. For Rod Norton, recovered and about his duties, was not quite the same touchingly heroic figure he had been while lying unconscious and in danger of his life. Nor was it any part of Florrie Engle's nature to remain long either upon the heights or in the depths of an emotion.

The night of the shooting she had cried out pa.s.sionately against Galloway; as days went their placid way and she saw Galloway upon each one of them . . . and did not see a great deal of Norton, who was either away or monopolizing Virginia, . . . she took the first step in the gambler's direction by beginning to be sorry for him. First, it was too bad that Mr. Galloway did the sort of things which he did; no doubt he had had no mother to teach him when he was very young. Next, it was a shame that he was blamed for everything that had to happen; maybe he was a . . . a bad man, but Florrie simply didn't believe he was responsible for half of the deeds laid at his door. Finally, through a long and intricate chain of considerations, the girl reached the point where she nodded when Galloway lifted his hat. The smile in the man's eyes was one of pure triumph.

"Oh, my dear!" Florrie burst into Virginia's room, flushed and palpitant with her latest emotion. "He has told me all about it, and do you know, I don't believe that we have the right to blame him?

Doesn't it say in the Bible or . . . or somewhere, that greater praise or something shall no man have than he who gives his life for a friend?

It's something like that, anyway. Aren't people just horrid, always blaming other people, never stopping to consider their reasons and impulses and looking at it from their side? Vidal Nunez was a friend of Mr. Galloway's; he was in Mr. Galloway's house. Of course . . ."

"I thought that you didn't speak to him any more."

"I didn't for a long time. But if you could have only seen the way he always looks at me when I b.u.mp into him. Virgie, I believe he is sad and lonely and that he would like to be good if people would only give him the chance. Why, he is human, after all, you know."

Virginia began to ask herself if Galloway were merely amusing himself with Florrie or if the man were really interested in her. It did not seem likely that a girl like Florrie would appeal to a man like him; and yet, why not? There is at least a grain of truth, if no more, in the old saw of the attraction of opposites. And it was scarcely more improbable that he should be interested in her than that she should allow herself to be ever so slightly moved by him. Furthermore, in its final a.n.a.lysis, emotion is not always to be explained.

Virginia set herself the task of watching for any slightest development of the man's influence over the girl. She saw Florrie almost daily, either at the hotel to which Florrie had acquired the habit of coming in the cool of the afternoons or at the Engle home. And for the sake of her little friend, and at the same time for Elmer's sake, she threw the two youngsters together as much as possible. They quarrelled rather a good deal, criticised each other with startling frankness, and grew to be better friends than either realized. Elmer was a vaquero now, as he explained whenever need be or opportunity arose, wore chaps, a knotted handkerchief about a throat which daily grew more brown, spurs as large and noisy as were to be encountered on San Juan's street, and his right hip pocket bulged. None of the details escaped Florrie's eyes . . . he called her "Fluff" now and she nicknamed him "Black Bill" . . . and she never failed to refer to them mockingly.