University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII
RAFE AND JEFF MISCALCULATE

The two men whom the craven gambler had sighted were coming slowly onward, their movements suggesting a good deal of care and watchfulness.

Nor did they come in a wholly straight line. That they did not suspect the nearness of Jim Duff and his mad companion was plain at a glance.

"Burrow in the sand!" whispered the gambler in Ashby's ear. "Quiet! Be ready, but don't do anything unless I give you the word."

"When you do give me the word," trembled the hotel man, "I'll kill 'em both."

"Not unless we have to do so—remember!"

ordered the gambler. "We want, if possible, to take 'em alive."

Let us now go back to the two men whom Duff and Ashby were watching so closely.

They were Rafe Bodson and Jeff Moore.

Both had come out of the recent fighting unharmed. Neither Rafe nor Jeff had fired a shot at the invading forces led by Hawkins. Instead, the pair had slipped stealthily away, until they had gotten out of the immediate zone of the hot firing. Then they hid under some bushes.

"An hour ago I'd have felt like a sneak, not standing by the gang any better," whispered Jeff uneasily.

"Same here," Rafe admitted. "In fact, I'm wondering whether I acted straight in running off like this."

"Aren't you sure about it in your own mind?" asked Jeff slowly.

"Almost," Rafe returned. "All that bothers me is not sticking by the same crowd that we started out with to-night. As for Jim Duff—"

"He's poison, and deadly poison at that," broke in Jeff.

"That's just what he is, pardner."

"Yet I used to like Duff pretty well."

"So did I," nodded Jeff. "But that was when I thought he had some sand."

"The fellow's a skulking coyote!"

"A coyote is brave, compared with Jim Duff," contended Jeff Moore.

"Reade and Hazelton showed the real sand!"

"I never thought tenderfeet could be as brave," glowed Moore.

"Jeff, I reckon Reade and Hazelton aren't real tenderfeet any more. They've been west some time. But, then, such fellows wouldn't be tenderfeet even if they lived in New Jersey all the time. Courage belongs in some fellows, no matter where they work."

"The fighting seems to be over," observed Jeff Moore.

"Then the friends of the two engineers must have found them," suggested Bodson.

"It doesn't sound like it over there. The newcomers seem to be doing a lot of hunting in the gully."

"Let's move in closer," proposed Rafe.

Crawling on their stomachs, the pair moved in closer. As they arrived, unseen, they were in time to see the late fighting men clamber into their automobiles. Hawkins could be heard giving directions for the further search for Reade and Hazelton.

Then the cars started away.

"What do you reckon?" demanded Jeff, looking at Bodson.

"I reckon some of Duff's crowd slipped out of the fight, got the two youngsters, and slipped away with them," Bodson answered.

"Then it was Duff—he was one of 'em," returned Jeff, with a strong conviction. "From what I've seen of Duff to-night he'd rather do a running trick than a fighting one."

"It would take two to carry both youngsters away. Who was the other one?" Rafe wondered aloud.

"Most likely the fellow who'd mind Duff best."

"That must mean poor George Ashby."

"Let's slip into the gully and see what we can find."

One fact learned in the gully astonished both investigators. Despite the volleys that had been fired no dead or wounded men lay about. Of course Hawkins could have taken any injured men away in the automobiles. Plainly the raiders had been equally fortunate in getting their wounded away on their horses. Mounted men familiar with the desert would know many paths where horses could travel, but where automobiles could not follow.

"Our hosses are gone," discovered Jeff a few moments.

"Of course," nodded Rafe. "The crowd we were out with wouldn't be slow in a simple

little piece of every-day honesty like stealing hosses!"

"I'm through with any such gang after this, Rafe. How about you?"

"I'm shore going to be careful about the kind of company I pick. But, Jeff, we'll have to travel away from these parts. No good company around here would welcome us. They wouldn't like the only references we could give, Jeff."

"Oh, shore, we'll have to travel," agreed Moore. "That is, if the sheriff doesn't take up our tickets before we get started."

"All this talk isn't showing us what became of Reade and Hazelton," remarked Rafe Bodson. "Let's go back under the trees and see if we can find what has become of Reade and Hazelton. Before I change my post- office box I'm going to try to do those two youngsters a good turn."

So the pair had started off. Yet, like the automobile searchers, Jeff and Rafe did not expect to run across Tom and Harry and their captors so close to the gully.

For this reason the pair proceeded without very much caution at the outset.

Even now, after Duff and Ashby had sighted them, Moore and Bodson halted twice to light matches and examine the trail that their keen

eyes had discovered as moving westward from the gully.

"Now, I reckon we've got the general direction," muttered Rafe Bodson when, after having once more discovered the tracks he turned and got the general course. "We know the way to head."

"Then we won't light any more matches," suggested Jeff. "It might get us into trouble."

Accordingly they kept on, guiding themselves now by their general knowledge of the country.

Jim Duff and Ashby were well concealed, not only by the sand, but by a little fringe of brush as well.

Hence it is not to be wondered at that Bodson and Moore went forward to be astonished by a sudden movement in the sand, followed by a hail of "Gentlemen, get your hands up, or take your medicine!"

The command came in Jim Duff's tones.

He was barely thirty feet away from the surprised pair, one of his revolvers leveled so to drop Bodson at a touch of the trigger.

George Ashby's sawed-off shotgun looked squarely at the region bounded by Jeff Moore's belt.

"It's your turn, gentlemen," agreed Rafe, he put his hands in the air.

"You've got us—be decent," grinned Jeff, as he, too, raised his hands upward.

"Get your hands up higher!" ordered Jim Duff in his deadliest tone. These men were now helpless, and the gambler merely chuckled inwardly at the thought.

"Is this where we shoot them?" queried the mad hotel keeper.

"Yes—after a minute or two!" nodded Jim Duff, who wished first to determine whether the automobiles of the searching party were moving too near to them.

"I can hardly wait for the word!" quivered Ashby.