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Bozzam turned to Paisley. “It’s up to you. Nigger!” he said sharply. “Get Jane Carter!”

Paisley’s horse lunged with the command; Kathleen watched him as he swept downward into the ghostly mists of the big basin. Then she turned, to see Bozzam grinning at her.

“Come on, my dear!” he said. “We’ll be going, to—to where we’re going!”

He seized her horse by the reins, still grinning, and led it slowly into the basin, following Paisley.

CHAPTER XXV

ANOTHER CAPTIVE

Back in the big basin, Nigger Paisley paused momentarily, near a clump of sagebrush, to look downward at a figure that lay, doubled queerly, in the long grass. The figure had not changed its position since Paisley had seen it last. But there was a savage impulse in Paisley’s heart to make it sure, and he drew his heavy pistol. But something in the ghastly pallor of the upturned face caused Paisley to shiver with repugnance. He sheathed the pistol, without firing it, cast a glance at the riderless horse that was unconcernedly browsing near by, and rode onward.

Later, following Paisley’s trail, Hame Bozzam and Kathleen passed the sage-clump—but Bozzam had veered off, so that Kathleen could not see the place. She searched for it, with dumb, pitiful curiosity and eagerness; but without success. There were so many clumps of sage. But when she followed Bozzam over the sand ridge she knew she had missed the spot, and she pleaded with Bozzam to return, that she might give her father what help she could—if he were alive.

Bozzam laughed brutally.

“He won’t need any help. Nigger didn’t bungle that job!”

He rode steadily on, not heeding her pleas and protests.

Yet Paisley had bungled the job. Half an hour after Kathleen and Bozzam had passed, the Colonel stirred and groaned. Then he opened his eyes, dazedly surveying the star-dotted heavens, rolling his head from side to side, in an effort to get side glances at the mist-screened objects around him. It was a long time before he remembered, and then he turned over, every movement bringing forth a retching groan. Somewhere in the back, near the spine, Paisley’s bullet had struck him; his legs were a dead weight of paralyzed, unwieldy flesh. They did not seem to belong to his body at all; and when he finally got to a sitting position he had to lift them around; they dangled, flopping here and there, when he tugged at them. Only his torso was alive, and that racked with agonizing pains.

The Colonel’s moral weakness had been his curse. It had dominated his life, it had warped his soul. He had always been a coward; he had always been afraid. Afraid of punishment, of blame, afraid that what had happened to him, would happen. It had happened; Bozzam had punished him. And it was not half so bad as he had pictured it, as he had feared it would be. He had suffered this punishment thousands of times, in his imagination; the exquisite torture of it had shriveled his soul; he had suffered it in fear, in dread and in hideous horror. Thus, many men experience the pangs of death, suffering its agonies before it comes.

The Colonel laughed harshly, with horrible, mirthless cacklings that sent the denizens of sage and chaparral thicket scurrying into deeper concealment; that so startled a coyote, which for a long time had been watching from a far mesquite clump, that he barked in terror and slunk away. There would be no feast here, the man was far from being dead or helpless. That laugh could belong only to some one in whom the instinct, and the ability to live, was strong and dominant.

And the Colonel did want to live—he was determined to live. He knew Hame Bozzam. He knew that Hame Bozzam had his daughter, and he was determined to do what he could toward thwarting Bozzam.

That would be little or much, depending on his physical strength. Of moral courage he had plenty, now. He glowed with the vigor of it. It was a strong, vital element that gave unthought-of power to his muscles, and he crept on his hands through the grass toward his horse with a rapidity that brought satisfied grunts out of him.

But when he came close to the horse, the animal raised its head, flecked its ears erect, and looked at him in astonishment. Then, before he could speak, it snorted in fright, slashed at him with both hind hoofs, and trotted twenty paces away.

He pursued it, doggedly. Again he approached it—again it retreated from him. And again he crawled after it, persisting, determined.

An hour passed before he succeeded in getting close enough to the animal to make a snatch at the dangling reins. Then he missed them, and the horse moved off again.

The Colonel had to stop many times. He was growing weaker, and his lungs were not equal to the terrific strain. Yet he persisted; and when at last he made a desperate lunge for the bridle reins, and felt his hand close around them, he was so spent that he plunged headlong into the grass and rested there many minutes before he could raise his head.

The horse, trained to the ethics of range work, did not try to escape after the Colonel’s hand closed on the reins. He stood, docile enough, patiently awaiting the Colonel’s pleasure.

The Colonel waited long. Then he raised himself to a sitting posture. This brought his head to a level with the stirrup. He grasped the tough, bowed wood and tried to drag himself erect.

He failed, because his legs would not support him; and sank back to his sitting posture, sweating coldly. He tried again, and whined dismally as he sank down, defeated. Then, with a last heroic effort, he raised himself high enough to grasp the rope that hung from its ring near the pommel of the saddle, pulled it loose, threw a hitch over the pommel; tied the other end of the rope securely under his arms, bunching his coat so that the rope would not chafe. Then he squirmed around and unbuckled the bridle reins, and holding the leather in hand lashed the horse with it, and urged him with his voice.

Nigger Paisley’s task was to his liking. He rode fast until he got near the Diamond Bar ranchhouse; then he went forward cautiously. First, he rode slowly near the corral fence and scrutinized the exterior of the bunkhouse. The door was not closed. Still, there was little significance in that, for ordinarily, a bunkhouse door was always open. Yet there were few horses in the corral; not the number there would be were many of the Diamond Bar men in the bunkhouse. Baldy had said that a number of the Diamond Bar men had gone to Bozzam City with Gawne, and in that case, since Gawne would want all the men he could conveniently get for such work as he had set out to do, it seemed reasonable to suppose that he had taken every man from headquarters. The others might be at some distant cow-camp, and if that were the case they might as well not exist at all.

Paisley peered into the open doorway of the bunkhouse. Inside, by the moonlight that streamed into the windows, he could see the bunks—all empty. He strode in now, gun in hand; to emerge an instant later, grinning broadly.

In the corral he found Ginger. It was little trouble to rope the beast and throw saddle and bridle on it. While in the stable he noted that Ginger’s saddle was the only one there. This discovery brought another grin to his face. Slipping Ginger’s bridle rein through a staple on the stable door, Paisley strode toward the ranchhouse. He found the side door open. He stood there long, listening, before he hazarded the action of pushing the door further ajar. And then he saw a faint streak of light gleaming through a crevice in another doorway, stabbing the darkness of the room into which he was looking.

Paisley moved, with patient stealth, through the outside doorway. The red marauders that, six years before, had stolen into the ranchhouse to pillage and murder, could not have been more silent than Paisley. With his eyes at the crevice in the inner doorway. Paisley grinned. Jane was sitting at a table in the dining-room, her back to the door, a lamp on the table beside her, reading. She was alone.

The course of study prescribed by Kathleen Harkless, Jane was following faithfully. The Colonel’s daughter might have had something to say in objection to methods, but Jane’s energy and application would have won her teacher’s applause. The girl had persisted. Notwithstanding the differences that had come between Kathleen and Gawne, she had cherished a hope that one day they would be adjusted. And in the meantime, she would continue to study, having in mind a surprise for her teacher when at last she would return to resume her responsibility.

But it was growing late, and she had studied much. Her eyes were tired and her vision hazy. Aunt Emily and Uncle Lafe had gone to bed—hours ago, it seemed to Jane, and she was beginning to envy them. She placed her book on the table, stretched, yawned, and started to rise. A breath of night breeze set the lamp to flickering and she knew the door had blown open. She stiffened at a rustling sound behind her. But Paisley was upon her. A big bandanna handkerchief, slipped, unerringly and roughly, over her mouth, stifled the terror-shriek at its inception; the cloth was lashed so tightly at the back of her head that her frenzied clutches could not dislodge it. And then her hands were seized, pinioned at her sides with savage ferocity; and she was lifted and carried, struggling, and kicking, but without having made a sound that would apprise Aunt Emily and Uncle Lafe of her predicament, out into the open.

Hame Bozzam and Kathleen had been at the Harkless ranch for an hour when Paisley arrived with his captive. Kathleen was still lashed to her horse: Bozzam had tied the animal to a porch post while he had gone into the ranchhouse. Kathleen had watched him emerge twice with provisions, which he rolled carefully into the slicker at the cantle of his saddle; and the eloquent significance of this preparation appalled her. It meant that Bozzam meditated a long ride.

But she said nothing to him; her contempt for him exacted an ignoring silence from her. But her dread of him had grown, and she watched him, with a covert and terrorized fascination. But when she saw Jane coming, with Paisley—and knew that Paisley had been successful, she sat, white and limp in the saddle, unable to utter a sound.

It was not until she saw the huge handkerchief around Jane’s mouth, drawn so tightly that it seemed the girl must suffocate, that she could make her voice answer its office. A wave of compassion and wrath made her words come chokingly. They were directed to Paisley:

“Take that rag off her mouth, you beast!” she said.

Paisley grinned insolently at her. He did not offer to comply.

“Take it off, Paisley,” came Bozzam’s voice from the doorway, in mild mockery. “The lady’s wishes are to be respected.”

“If that is so, please untie my hands,” said Kathleen. “And bring the child to me. You have frightened her almost into hysterics!” The handkerchief had been removed from Jane’s mouth and the girl was moaning and crying incoherently.

Bozzam came close to Kathleen and scanned her face sharply. He saw that her concern for Jane was real and deep.

“All right,” he said, shortly. “However, there’s no occasion for her fears—nor yours. We are not going to harm you.”

“Release us, then,” said Kathleen.

“That is impossible,” laughed Bozzam, lowly. “I want you with us—both of you—for reasons that are—my own. I may tell you when we get to Williams’ Cache. Ever hear of Williams’ Cache? It’s an outlaw rendezvous in some hills in the desert, south of here. I’ve many friends there. Blacky Williams, himself, is a warm personal friend of mine. I’ve cultivated Blacky for just such an emergency as this. I’ve sold my cattle through Blacky and put many a dollar in his way. In fact, Blacky and I are partners, in a way. He’s asked me time and again to join forces with him. But I preferred to play the game alone. Until Jeff Gawne butted in I had things pretty much my own way, in Bozzam City. I’d like to stay here longer, but there’s no use. Bozzam City is getting too big. So I’m going to take Blacky up, and join him. Williams’ Cache is a right pretty place. It’s a green oasis in the desert—good water, trees, fair houses—it’s quite a town. The law doesn’t get that far. You’ll like it, you’ll be a queen there. I can give you everything that any woman could wish for. That applies to Jane, too. I’m going to adopt Jane. She will be our child.”

“You mean—” gasped Kathleen.

“That you are going to be my wife, if there is such a thing as a parson in Williams’ Cache. If there isn’t—well, what’s a little law to do with marriage, anyway?” His laugh sent a shiver over Kathleen.

But she turned from him and set about consoling Jane. The appreciation of her own danger was dulled in her concern for the girl. Jane, clinging to her, filled her with the high instinct of protection. And there was hope—hope that Gawne, discovering Jane’s abduction, would ride abroad in search of her. There was Gawne’s vengeance to be considered, too, and she did consider it; and the whiteness of her face was not caused entirely from fear and dread of what Hame Bozzam might do to her, and Jane; some of the pallor was a result of a divination of what Gawne’s passions would be when he set out to find Jane and to hunt down her abductor. He was her only hope, now; and she would have forgiven him everything now—if she could have seen him sweeping toward her over the dark level from the Diamond Bar ranchhouse on Meteor. She would even forgive him for that torturing instant when she had seen him with the Le Claire woman.

So, nursing her hope which she whispered to Jane, she made no demonstration when Bozzam and Paisley finally mounted their horses and moved away from the Harkless ranchhouse, leading her and Jane down a shadowy trail toward a still more shadowy future.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE COLONEL CONFESSES

The Vigilantes spent the greater part of the night in the vicinity of the Bozzam ranchhouse. There was much work to be done, in addition to that which had already been accomplished. The Committee had taken a keen interest in the departure of the Bozzam outfit, several of the men keeping an eye on the Bozzam men until they were observed to veer south, after leaving the ranch, as though while riding they had agreed upon a destination.

“They’re goin’ to Williams’ Cache,” declared a Vigilante; “We ain’t seen the last of that outfit, by a long shot!”

That remote contingency, however, did not depress the spirits of the Committee. In the glare of light from the burning buildings the men “cut out” Bozzam’s cattle—dividing them equally among the owners who had recently missed cattle from their herds; playing no favorites; making the awards with scrupulous exactness. The horses in Bozzam’s corral fared likewise, for if all had not been stolen in the vicinity, it was felt that Bozzam would never be able to make a legal claim for them. And assuredly they did not belong to Bozzam.

When the Committee split up—a number of the men driving to their home ranches the cattle and horses apportioned to them—day was beginning to break.