CHAPTER VIII.
THE CAPTIVE'S SADDLEBAG.
OLD Josh did not content himself with pointing out the way toward what he was sure was the main rendezvous of the rustlers. He stayed with the riders all the day. Fourteen strong, they journeyed deeper and deeper into the Sumner Mountains. And in the late afternoon they started back, fifteen strong for the Peters ranch house.
They had picked up one man in their journey, and with that man they came to Doc Peters at the close of the day. They described how they had taken him and how they had questioned him. But he would not return an answer. They wanted to know whether or not he had formed a part of the gang which operated under Joe Daly. They demanded to know where the rendezvous of that gang might be. But the prisoner would not speak. In vain they had tried every persuasion on him. They had tried to corner him by showing their knowledge that the very horse, which he rode was known to be the favorite horse of Joe Daly, but still he could not be induced to speak.
Then Red Stanton had tried other measures. The muzzle of the unfortunate man's own six-shooter had been heated and pressed into his flesh. He had fainted, but he did not speak. They dragged him down to the ranch house, reeling in the saddle, but with his jaws locked together; the pain of his torture and the weakness which followed it, were on his forehead, but his eyes were still strong with defiance. They brought him into the ranch house. When they dropped their hands from his shoulders, he stood swaying from side to side before Peters.
"Now," said Red Stanton, grinding his teeth with fury because the man had held out so long against him, "now it's your chance, Doc. You've got something agin' this gent. You can make him talk out. All you got to do is to make him tell you where we can get at Joe Daly, and your job is finished."
"D'you mean torture it out of him, boys?" asked the rancher slowly.
"Dad!" cried Miriam.
To Red Stanton in the morning it had seemed that nothing was more important than to win the favor of the girl. He could have sworn that the happiest man in the mountains was that man who could make her smile. But since the morning another nature had risen in Red Stanton, his true self. Now he swung around on the girl with his muscular arm outstretched, pointing. But it was almost as though he had struck her down.
"You," he said, "what are you doing in here? Ain't this a man's place to hear man talk? Run along and sit in a corner. You ain't wanted here!"
She shrank away from him, but she kept her head high.
"Dad!" she pleaded. "Do you permit one of your men to talk to me like this?"
"I'm telling her to keep away from this sort of a job," explained Red, a little more mildly to the rancher. "Ain't I right?"
"You are," said Peters. Inwardly he was boiling with rage at the insolence of the big man, but he was forced to admit that Red had been of great service to him already and might be of still more value in the immediate future.
"Miriam, you ain't needed here."
His voice was drowned by a roar of beastlike violence from Red Stanton.
"Look at the yaller-hearted hound!" he thundered. "There's Pete! Look at him, boys! Look at him come creeping in! Why, I got a mind"
He gave over words for a more direct and effectual expression of his emotions. He caught up the chair which was nearest him. Though the chair was heavy, and though he used only one hand to swing it, yet he sent it whirling across the room with such terrific speed and force that Pete Burnside had not time to dodge. He was struck by the flying-missile and sent crashing into a corner. And when he staggered, half stunned, to his feet, he was greeted with a huge burst of laughter. Even Red Stanton dissolved in mirth. He had pacified himself in the joy of seeing poor Pete tumbling head over heels. Now he laughed and laughed again, swaying his great bulk from side to side; but Pete strove to cringe away through the door.
"Stay here!" thundered the bully.
Pete paused.
"Come back and stay here till I tell you to go. I dunno, I might have a job for you to do."
Miriam watched the white and working face of Pete, watched it until shame and grief choked her and made her stare down to the floor. It was as though she had herself stood in the flesh of this craven and tormented man.
Suddenly all attention was focused on Peters.
"Red," he said, "if you try a thing like that ag'in, I'm through with you—understand? I don't care what you can do for me, I'm through with you!"
"Sorry, chief," said Stanton, "but when I seen that sneak and remembered how he'd ducked out of the trouble that we'd been hunting all day—when I seen that sneaking face of his—why, I couldn't help sort of busting out." He went on hastily to change the subject. "But there's something to be got out of this gent, boss. Ask him what he's doing with this, will you? We tried to get him to talk, but he wouldn't say a word to us. He wouldn't do no explaining."
As he spoke he drew out of a saddlebag, which he had been carrying, a rectangular object blunted at the corners. It was backed with a heavy quilting, and the upper surface of it was armor steel finely chased and engraved.
"I found this here thing in his saddlebag," said Red. "He wouldn't do no talking, but I figure that maybe this means something. Maybe this scrawling stuff is a code."
"I'm sure I don't know," said the rancher in mild wonder. "I can't figure what"
Miriam came suddenly forward from the corner where she had remained after the outbreak of Stanton. She took from the ruffian's hand the object he had been holding.
"Dad," she said, turning her back on the rest, "there's no need to ask him what it is. I know."
"Well, Miriam, what is it?"
"A breastplate—an old piece of armor."
"What the deuce would a gent be using armor for? That ain't got sense, Miriam!"
"Don't they still wear it—a regular coat of mail—don't men wear it in Mexico and along the border when they expect that they may get into a knife fight?"
"I know that," replied her father, "but this here thing ain't mail. Who'd wear a thing that heavy to keep from a knife?"
"Why not from bullets then?"
"What you mean?"
"I say, why not wear that old breastplate to turn a bullet?"
"Honey, a rifle bullet would go through that like it was a piece of cheese!"
"Yes, a rifle bullet has penetrating power, but what about a revolver bullet—a big, soft slug of lead? Would that go through?"
"I'll be durned!" gasped the rancher. "I never thought about that."
"It's an idea sure enough," muttered Red Stanton. "We'll try it out!"
Catching the steel plate from the hand of the girl, he propped it against the wall at the side of the room. He stood back, whipped out his Colt, and pumped three shots squarely into the center of his target. Then he ran across, while the echo of the last shot was still humming in all ears, and picked up the little slab of steel.
"Well, dog-gone my hide!" roared Red Stanton. "Not a one of them slugs went through. Look here—I didn't no more'n put a dent in the surface. And here's other places. Look here, partners, and here! There's pretty close onto twenty dents, much like the three I've put into her. I tell you what, this ain't the first time that this here thing has been shot at!"
They crowded around it, clamoring with wonder, and from the farther side of the room arose Pete Burnside. His square jaw was set, and his face was white, and there was an almost maniacal light in his eyes. He was drawn nearer and near to the center of interest. His movements were like those of a sleep walker.
In the meantime the talk turned back to the stranger from whose saddlebag that steel plate, with the quilting down the back, had been taken. The controversy raged hot about him. Should all that he knew be torn out of him? Should they torture him until he was glad to speak?
They even forgot about the old breastplate. Pete was allowed to pick it up. He seized it in trembling hands and retired to a corner of the room. There the girl saw him bend over the plate and study it with a wild interest, a passion so consuming that he seemed to be trying to tear a secret out of the very steel.