Rimrock Trail, Joseph Allan Dunn [miss read books TXT] 📗

with only a passage wide enough to let through horse and rider single file, a way that could be easily barricaded or masked so that none would suspect any opening in the cliff. The second led by a winding way through a desolate region, over rock that left no sign and wound by twists and turns that none but the initiated could follow. The place, accidentally discovered, was perfect for its purpose.

There were some horses now in the Hideout, the lot purchased from the man from Phoenix, whom Butch suspected. But Parsons was of a suspicious disposition and the rest had overruled him, though the purchase had taken most of the cash at their disposal, until they could make the sale that had fallen through at the last minute. There was feed enough for the entire herd for a month. There was a cabin in a side gully of the park, near the blocked entrance, the whole place was honeycombed with caves, in the towering sidewalls and underground.

Five of the nine left of the Waterline outfit drove the herd. Hahn and Parsons could both ride, but they were not experts at handling horses. They chose to go with Plimsoll and the outfit-cook, while the rest took the long way round to the other way in. The four lingered to give the rest a start. There was some liquor left and this they started to dispose of. At noon the cook got a farewell meal and they mounted.

"I hate leaving the country without evening up some way with the Bourke outfit," said Plimsoll. "Damn him and the rest of them, they broke the luck for us. As for the girl, if...?"

"Oh, quit throwing the bull con about that, Jim," said Parsons bluntly. "Sandy Bourke's a damn good man for you to leave alone an' you know it. Talk ain't goin' to hurt him."

"I'm coming back some time," said Plimsoll with a string of oaths. "Then you'll see something besides talk."

Parsons jeered at him. Plimsoll was no longer the leader and he knew it. But he hung on to the semblance of authority that an open quarrel with Butch might shatter. Butch was a bully, but Plimsoll respected his shooting. And Hahn sided with him. The cook did not count.

Plimsoll carried with him a fine pair of binoculars and, as they rode leisurely on and reached a vantage-point, he swept the tumbled horizon for signs of any strange riders. It was the caution of habit as much as actual fear of a raid. There were no Hereford County horses in his herd save those he had bred himself and he did not think Wyatt or the others who had left the outfit would be able to stir up sentiment against him in Hereford. It would take time to get in touch with Brandon. But they made it a point to be sure that no casual rider noticed them on the way to the Hideout, or coming from it.

At times Plimsoll rode aside from the trail to a ridge crest for wider vision. At last, coming up the pass of Willow Creek, he sighted Molly and Donald with Grit trotting beside them. It was the dog that confirmed his first surmise. He had heard that Molly had returned, but he had not dared a visit to the Three Star. Who the rider with her was he did not care. That it was a tenderfoot was plain by his clothes and by his seat. As he adjusted the powerful glasses to a better focus Plimsoll's face twisted to an ugly smile. He had a flask in his hip pocket and he swigged at it before he rode to catch up with Parsons and Hahn.

"I'll show you if I do nothing but talk," he said to Butch after he told them of his discovery. "We'll wait for them along the trail. We'll send the chap with her back afoot."

"And what'll you do with her?" asked Hahn. "We've had enough of skirts, Plimsoll. This is no time to be mixed up with them."

"Isn't it?" The drink had given Plimsoll some of his old swagger, and the prospect of hatching the revenge over which he had brooded so long took possession of him. "Then you're a bigger fool than I thought you, Hahn. That particular skirt, aside from my personal interest in her, represents about a quarter of a million dollars—maybe more. She's got a quarter interest and a little better in the Molly Mine. The Three Star owns another quarter. How much will they give up to have her back? Bourke's her guardian, remember. I think the chap with her may be young Keith. We won't monkey with him. He'll do to tell what happened. But we'll take the girl along and we'll send back word of how much we want to let her go. After I'm through with her. She may not go back the same as she came, but they won't know that and they'll pay enough to set us up and to hell with the herd."

Parsons and Hahn looked at each other, greed rising in their eyes. They had no love for the partners of the Three Star nor for Molly Casey. A big ransom was possible if it was handled right.

"You'll have the whole county searching the range," objected Parsons. "There's a lot know something about the Hideout and they'll use Wyatt to show 'em the way. Bourke'll guess where she is."

"Let him. Wyatt don't know about the caves, does he? We can take her some other place to-morrow. We won't say anything now to the kid about a ransom. We'll mail a letter after we fix details. But we'll take the girl into the Hideout now. That tenderfoot'll be lucky if he drifts back to the Three Star by nightfall afoot. We'll be out of the place long before that. And we'll put her where they can't find her till they come through. I'm running this."

The cook had ridden on ahead. Now he was waiting for them, looking back. Parsons shrugged his shoulders.

"How do we split?" asked Hahn.

"Three ways," said Plimsoll. "We'll take her to the cabin. The rest'll be at the other end. We'll keep Cookie with us—for the present. No need for the boys to know about it. We can manage that all right. Three ways, and I handle the girl."

Butch Parson grinned at him.

"I thought you'd lost all your nerve, Jim, but I guess I was wrong. All right, it goes as it lays. You handle the lady. You ought to know how. Now then, how'll we bring it off?"

Plimsoll talked glibly, convincingly. Butch Parsons had no extra share of brains, those he had had never been developed beyond the ordinary. Hahn was a good faro dealer. There his intelligence specialized and ended. Plimsoll was the master-mind of his crowd; they appreciated and acknowledged his capacity for details. That he had been unsuccessful of late they set down to his lack of nerve, dissipated in his encounter with Sandy. Their present lack of cash, the doubtfulness of being able to sell and deliver the horses, made ransom a glittering possibility. Hahn had some objections, but Plimsoll overruled them plausibly enough.

"I don't see the sense of letting the kid go," questioned Hahn. "He's good for a big split as well as the girl."

"You're a fool when it comes to looking ahead, Hahn. You always were," answered Plimsoll. What with the chance of revenge in sight over which he had brooded until it became a part of his consciousness, and the liquor still stirring potently within him, he felt that his ascendancy had become reestablished, "Keith—the old man—is too big a fish to monkey with. Got too many pulls and connections. He'd have the whole country out and the trick played up big in every dinky newspaper. That's part of his business—publicity. We've got one fish—or will have—no sense straining the net. We don't want the kid. Let him string along back best way he can. We'll get all the start we need. What else would you do with him?"

"Stow him away somewhere and send a tip where they can find him in a day or two."

Plimsoll shot a look of contempt at Butch, making the proposal.

"You and Hahn make a good team," he said. "No. One's enough. He may get lost—we'll take his horse—and that won't be our fault. He may make Three Star late this afternoon. I wish I could be with him when he tells what he knows. Time they locate the Hideout, we'll be miles away through the south end and they'll have one hell of a time trailing us over the rocks. The boys weren't over-keen about staying with the herd and they can vamose. We'll tell them it's best to scatter for a bit and name a meeting-place. The horses can stay in the park. If we put this deal over right we don't need to bother about horse-trading. We can get clean out of the country with a big stake, go down to South America and start up a place. There are live times and good plays down there, boys. All right, Cookie, we're coming. I'm going to take another look. It's ten to one they're making for Beaver Dam Lake—on a picnic."

He laughed and the two laughed with him as he went for his survey and returned, announcing that the girl and her escort were entering the ravine at the other end. They rode through the trees toward them. Molly and Donald came on so leisurely that Plimsoll feared they might have turned back and, with Butch, he risked a look down the trail, sighting them.

"They didn't recognize us," he said. "We've got to take Cookie into this. You and Butch ride on through the trees a ways, Hahn, till you get back of them. Then we'll get 'em between us. I'll wise Cookie up to what we are doing."

It was more than doubtful whether the three ever intended for a second to allow Cookie to share in the ransom money, but Plimsoll easily persuaded him that he would be a partner, adding that it would be foolish to let all the riders into the pot.

"She's Molly Casey of the Casey Mine," he told him. "Sandy Bourke's her guardian. We'll make him come through with twenty or thirty thousand, sabe? But there ain't enough to go all round and make a showing."

Cookie was a willing rascal and a natural adept at the double-cross. He raised no objections and the trap was set and sprung.

"You go ahead, Cookie, and open up the gate," said Plimsoll. Hahn and Butch were speeding Donald Keith on his way with close-flung bullets. "I'm going to have a little private talk with this lady. Go to the cabin and get some grub ready. There's plenty there. Spread yourself. We'll be along in a little while. That was a nice job of roping you did. I won't forget it."

"Allus c'ud lass' fair to middlin'," grinned the man through yellow, stumpy teeth. "That's why I tote a rope. An' I sure had a purty target."

Plimsoll scowled at him and he rode off. Molly, the lariat twisted about her upper body from shoulders to waist, constricting her arms, fastened where she could not reach it by a hitch, sat on Blaze, looking with steady contempt at Plimsoll, who held her bridle rein. He regarded her with sleek complacency and then his eyes slowly traveled over her rounded figure, accented by her riding toggery.

"Grown to be quite a beauty, quite a woman, Molly, my dear," he said. "Never should have suspected you'd turn out such a wonder. Clothes make the woman, but it takes a proper figure to set them off. And you've got all of that."

"What are you going to do with me?"