The Girl of the Golden West Part 16

"Oh, yes, Mr. Ashby, I'm with you all right."

During this conversation the eyes of the greaser had been wandering all over the room. But as the men moved away from him to take their drinks he started violently and an expression of dismay crossed his features.

"Ramerrez' saddle!" he muttered to himself. "_The Maestro_--he is taken!"

Just then there came a particularly loud burst of approval from the spectators of the dancing going on in the adjoining room, and instinctively the men at the bar half-turned towards the noise. The prisoner's eyes followed their gaze and a fiendish grin replaced the look of dismay on his face. "No, he is there dancing with a girl," he said under his breath. A moment later Nick let down the bearskin curtain, shutting off completely the Mexican's view of the dance-hall.

"Come, now, tell us what your name is?" The voice was Ashby's who, together with the others, now surrounded the prisoner. "Speak up--who are you?"

"My name ees Jose Castro;" and then he added with a show of pride: "_Ex-padrona_ of the bull-fights."

"But the bull-fights are at Monterey! Why do you come to this place?"

All eyes instantly turned from the prisoner to Rance, who had asked the question while seated at the table, and from him they returned to the prisoner, most of the men giving vent to exclamations of anger in tones that made the greaser squirm, while Trinidad expressed the prevailing admiration of the Sheriff's poser by crying out:

"That's the talk--you bet! Why do you come here?"

Castro's face wore an air of candour as he replied:

"To tell the Senor Sheriff I know where ees Ramerrez."

Rance turned on the prisoner a grim look.

"You lie!" he vociferated, at the same time raising his hand to check the angry mutterings of the men that boded ill for the greaser.

"Nay," denied Castro, strenuously, "pleanty Mexican _vaquero_--my friend Peralta, Weelejos all weeth Ramerrez--so I know where ees."

Rance advanced and shot a finger in his face.

"You're one of his men yourself!" he cried hotly. But if he had hoped by his accusation to take the man off his guard, it was eminently unsuccessful, for the look on the greaser's face was innocence itself when he declared:

"No, no, Senor Sheriff."

Rance reflected a moment; suddenly, then, he took another tack.

"You see that man there?" he queried, pointing to the Wells Fargo Agent.

"That is Ashby. He is the man that pays out that reward you've heard of." Then after a pause to let his words sink in, he demanded gruffly: "Where is Ramerrez' camp?"

At once the prisoner became voluble.

"Come with me one mile, Senor," he said, "and by the soul of my mother, the blessed Maria Saltaja, we weel put a knife into hees back."

"One mile, eh?" repeated Rance, coolly.

The miners looked incredulous.

"If I tho't--" began Sonora, but Rance rudely cut in with:

"Where is this trail?"

"Up the Madrona Canyada," was the greaser's instant reply.

At this juncture a Ridge boy, who had pushed aside the bear-skin curtain and was gazing with mouth wide open at the proceedings, suddenly cried out:

"Why, h.e.l.lo, boys! What's the--" He got no further. In a twinkling and with cries of "Shut up! Git!" the men made for the intruder and bodily threw him out of the room. When quiet was restored Rance motioned to the prisoner to proceed.

"Ramerrez can be taken--too well taken," declared the Mexican, gaining confidence as he went on, "if many men come with me--in forty minutes there--back."

Rance turned to Ashby and asked him what he thought about it.

"I don't know what to think," was the Wells Fargo Agent's reply. "But it certainly is curious. This is the second warning--intimation that we have had that he is somewhere in this vicinity."

"And this Nina Micheltorena--you say she is coming here to-night?"

Ashby nodded a.s.sent.

"All the same, Rance," he maintained, "I wouldn't go. Better drop in to The Palmetto later."

"What? Risk losin' 'im?" exclaimed Sonora, who had been listening intently to their conversation.

"We'll take the chance, boys, in spite of Ashby's advice," Rance said decisively. It was with not a little surprise that he heard the shouts with which his words were approved by all save the Wells Fargo Agent.

Now the miners made a rush for their coats, hats and saddles, while from all sides came the cries of, "Come on, boys! Careful--there!

Ready--Sheriff!"

Gladly, cheerfully, Nick, too, did what he could to get the men started by setting up the drinks for all hands, though he remarked as he did so:

"It's goin' to snow, boys; I don't like the sniff in the air."

But even the probability of encountering a storm--which in that alt.i.tude was something decidedly to be reckoned with--did not deter the men from proceeding to make ready for the road agent's capture. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time they had loaded up and got their horses together, and from the harmony in their ranks while carrying out orders, it was evident that not a man there doubted the success of their undertaking.

"We'll git this road agent!" sung out Trinidad, going out through the door.

"Right you are, pard!" agreed Sonora; but at the door he called back to the greaser: "Come on, you oily, garlic-eatin', red-peppery, dog-trottin', sunbaked son of a skunk!"

"Come on, you . . .!" came simultaneously from the Deputy, now untying the rope which bound the prisoner.

The greaser's teeth were chattering; he begged:

"One dreenk--I freeze . . ."

Turning to Nick the Deputy told him to give the man a drink, adding as he left the room:

"Watch him--keep your eye on him a moment for me, will you?"

Nick nodded; and then regarding the Mexican with a contemptuous look, he asked:

"What'll you have?"