The Cross Cut
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Courtney Ryley Cooper >> The Cross Cut
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"No need for hurry," he announced. "Young Rodaine can't possibly make
that trip in less than two hours. How long did it take you to come
down here?"
"About an hour, I should judge."
"Then we 've got plenty of time--hello--Central? Long distance,
please. What's that? Yeh--Long Distance. Want to put in a call for
Center City." A long wait, while a metallic voice streamed over the
wire into the sheriff's ear. He hung up the receiver. "Blocked," he
said shortly. "The wire 's down. Three or four poles fell from the
force of the storm. Can't get in there before morning."
"But there 's the telegraph!"
"It 'd take half an hour to get the operator out of bed--office is
closed. Nope. We 'll take the short cut. And we 'll beat him there
by a half-hour!"
Anita started.
"You mean the Argonaut tunnel?"
"Yes. Call up there and tell them to get a motor ready for us to shoot
straight through. We can make it at thirty miles an hour, and the skip
in the Reunion Mine will get us to the surface in five minutes. The
tunnel ends sixteen hundred feet underground, about a thousand feet
from Center City," he explained, as he noted Fairchild's wondering
gaze. "You stay here. We 've got to wait for those prisoners--and
lock 'em up. I 'll be getting my car warmed up to take us to the
tunnel."
Anita already was at the 'phone, and Fairchild sank into a chair,
watching her with luminous eyes. The world was becoming brighter; it
might be night, with a blizzard blowing, to every one else,--but to
Fairchild the sun was shining as it never had shone before. A thumping
sound came from without. Harry entered with his two charges, followed
shortly by Bardwell, the sheriff, while just beneath the office window
a motor roared in the process of "warming up." The sheriff looked from
one to the other of the two men.
"These people have made charges against you," he said shortly. "I want
to know a little more about them before I go any farther. They say you
've been high-jacking."
Taylor Bill nodded in the affirmative.
"And that you robbed the Old Times dance and framed the evidence
against this big Cornishman?"
Taylor Bill scraped a foot on the floor.
"It's true. Squint Rodaine wanted me to do it. He 'd been trying for
thirty years to get that Blue Poppy mine. There was some kind of a
mix-up away back there that I did n't know much about--fact is, I did
n't know anything. The Silver Queen didn't amount to much and when
demonetization set in, I quit--you 'll remember, Sheriff--and went
away. I 'd worked for Squint before, and when I came back a couple of
years ago, I naturally went to him for a job again. Then he put this
proposition up to me at ten dollars a day and ten per cent. It looked
too good to be turned down."
"How about you?" Bardwell faced Blindeye. The sandy lashes blinked
and the weak eyes turned toward the floor.
"I--was in on it."
That was enough. The sheriff reached for his keys. A moment more and
a steel door clanged upon the two men while the officer led the way to
his motor car. There he looked quizzically at Anita Richmond, piling
without hesitation into the front seat.
"You going too?"
"I certainly am," and she covered her intensity with a laugh, "there
are a number of things that I want to say to Mr. Maurice Rodaine--and I
have n't the patience to wait!"
Bardwell chuckled. The doors of the car slammed and the engine roared
louder than ever. Soon they were churning along through the driving
snow toward the great buildings of the Argonaut Tunnel Company, far at
the other end of town. There men awaited them, and a tram motor,
together with its operator,--happy in the expectation of a departure
from the usual routine of hauling out the long strings of ore and
refuse cars from the great tunnel which, driving straight through the
mountains, had been built in the boom days to cut the workings of mine
after mine, relieving the owners of those holdings of the necessity of
taking their product by the slow method of burro packs to the
railroads, and gaining for the company a freight business as enriching
as a bonanza itself. The four pursuers took their places on the
benches of the car behind the motor. The trolley was attached. A
great door was opened, allowing the cold blast of the blizzard to whine
within the tunnel. Then, clattering over the frogs, green lights
flashing from the trolley wire, the speeding journey was begun.
It was all new to Fairchild, engrossing, exciting. Close above them
were the ragged rocks of the tunnel roof, seeming to reach down as if
to seize them as they roared and clattered beneath. Seepage dripped at
intervals, flying into their faces like spray as they dashed through
it. Side tracks appeared momentarily when they passed the opening of
some mine where the ore cars stood in long lines, awaiting their turn
to be filled. The air grew warmer. The minutes were passing, and they
were nearing the center of the tunnel. Great gateways sped past them;
the motor smashed over sidetracks and spurs and switches as they
clattered by the various mine openings, the operator reaching above him
to hold the trolley steady as they went under narrow, low places where
the timbers had been placed, thick and heavy, to hold back the sagging
earth above.
Three miles, four, five, while Anita Richmond held close to Fairchild
as the speed became greater and the sparks from the wire above threw
their green, vicious light over the yawning stretch before them. A
last spurt, slightly down-grade, with the motor pushing the wheels at
their greatest velocity; then the crackling of electricity suddenly
ceased, the motor slowed in its progress, finally to stop. The driver
pointed to the right.
"Over there, sheriff--about fifty feet; that's the Reunion opening."
"Thanks!" They ran across the spur tracks in the faint light of a
dirty incandescent, gleaming from above. A greasy being faced them and
Bardwell, the sheriff, shouted his mission.
"Got to catch some people that are making a get-away through Center
City. Can you send us up in the skip?"
"Yes, two at a time."
"All right!" The sheriff turned to Harry. "You and I 'll go on the
first trip and hurry for the Ohadi road. Fairchild and Miss Richmond
will wait for the second and go to Sheriff Mason's office and tell him
what's up. Meet us there," he said to Fairchild, as he went forward.
Already the hoist was working; from far above came the grinding of
wheels on rails as the skip was lowered. A wave of the hand, then
Bardwell and Harry entered the big, steel receptacle. At the wall the
greasy workman pulled three times on the electric signal; a moment more
and the skip with its two occupants had passed out of sight.
A long wait followed while Fairchild strove to talk of many
things,--and failed in all of them. Things were happening too swiftly
for them to be put into crisp sentences by a man whose thoughts were
muddled by the fact that beside him waited a girl in a whipcord riding
suit--the same girl who had leaped from an automobile on the Denver
highway and--
It crystallized things for him momentarily.
"I 'm going to ask you something after a while--something that I 've
wondered and wondered about. I know it was n't anything--but--"
She laughed up at him.
"It did look terrible, didn't it?"
"Well, it would n't have been so mysterious if you had n't hurried away
so quick. And then--"
"You really did n't think I was the Smelter bandit, did you?" the laugh
still was on her lips. Fairchild scratched his head.
"Darned if I know what I thought. And I don't know what I think yet."
"But you 've managed to live through it."
"Yes--but--"
She touched his arm and put on a scowl.
"It's very, very awful!" came in a low, mock-awed voice. "But--" then
the laugh came again--"maybe if you 're good and--well, maybe I 'll
tell you after a while."
"Honest?"
"Of course I 'm honest! Is n't that the skip?"
Fairchild walked to the shaft. But the skip was not in sight. A long
ten minutes they waited, while the great steel carrier made the trip to
the surface with Harry and Sheriff Bardwell, then came lumbering down
again. Fairchild stepped in and lifted Anita to his side.
The journey was made in darkness,--darkness which Fairchild longed to
turn to his advantage, darkness which seemed to call to him to throw
his arms about the girl at his side, to crush her to him, to seek out
with an instinct that needed no guiding light the laughing, pretty lips
which had caused him many a day of happiness, many a day of worried
wonderment. He strove to talk away the desire--but the grinding of the
wheels in the narrow shaft denied that. His fingers twitched, his arms
trembled as he sought to hold back the muscles, then, yielding to the
impulse, he started--
"Da-a-a-g-gone it!"
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
But Fairchild was n't telling the truth. They had reached the light
just at the wrong, wrong moment. Out of the skip he lifted her, then
inquired the way to the sheriff's office of this, a new county. The
direction was given, and they went there. They told their story. The
big-shouldered, heavily mustached man at the desk grinned cheerily.
"That there's the best news I 've heard in forty moons," he announced.
"I always did hate that fellow. You say Bardwell and your partner went
out on the Ohadi road to head the young 'un off?"
"Yes. They had about a fifteen-minute start on us. Do you think--?"
"We 'll wait here. They 're hefty and strong. They can handle him
alone."
But an hour passed without word from the two Searchers. Two more went
by. The sheriff rose from his chair, stamped about the room, and
looked out at the night, a driving, aimless thing in the clutch of a
blizzard.
"Hope they ain't lost," came at last.
"Had n't we better--?"
But a noise from without cut off the conversation. Stamping feet
sounded on the steps, the knob turned, and Sheriff Bardwell,
snow-white, entered, shaking himself like a great dog, as he sought to
rid himself of the effects of the blizzard.
"Hello, Mason," came curtly.
"Hello, Bardwell, what 'd you find?"
The sheriff of Clear Creek county glanced toward Anita Richmond and was
silent. The girl leaped to her feet.
"Don't be afraid to talk on my account," she begged. "Where's Harry?
Is he all right? Did he come back with you?"
"Yes--he's back."
"And you found Maurice?"
Bardwell was silent again, biting at the end of his mustache. Then he
squared himself.
"No matter how much a person dislikes another one--it's, it's--always a
shock," came at last. Anita came closer.
"You mean that he 's dead?"
The sheriff nodded, and Fairchild came suddenly to his feet. Anita's
face had grown suddenly old,--the oldness that precedes the youth of
great relief.
"I 'm sorry--for any one who must die," came finally. "But
perhaps--perhaps it was better. Where was he?"
"About a mile out. He must have rushed his horse too hard. The sweat
was frozen all over it--nobody can push a beast like that through these
drifts and keep it alive."
"He did n't know much about riding."
"I should say not. Did n't know much of anything when we got to him.
He was just about gone--tried to stagger to his feet when we came up,
but could n't make it. Kind of acted like he 'd lost his senses
through fear or exposure or something. Asked me who I was, and I said
Bardwell. Seemed to be tickled to hear my name--but he called it
Barnham. Then he got up on his hands and knees and clutched at me and
asked me if I 'd drawn out all the money and had it safe. Just to
humor him, I said I had. He tried to say something after that, but it
was n't much use. The first thing we knew he 'd passed out. That's
where Harry is now--took him over to the mortuary. There isn't anybody
named Barnham, is there?"
"Barnham?" The name had awakened recollections for Fairchild; "why
he's the fellow that--"
But Anita cut in.
"He 's a lawyer in Denver. They 've been sending all the income from
stock sales to him for deposit. If Maurice asked if he 'd gotten the
money out, it must mean that they meant to run with all the proceeds.
We 'll have to telephone Denver."
"Providing the line's working." Bardwell stared at the other sheriff.
"Is it?"
"Yes--to Denver."
"Then let's get headquarters in a hurry. You know Captain Lee, don't
you? You do the talking. Tell him to get hold of this fellow Barnham
and pinch him, and then send him up to Ohadi in care of Pete Carr or
some other good officer. We 've got a lot of things to say to him."
The message went through. Then the two sheriffs rose and looked at
their revolvers.
"Now for the tough one." Bardwell made the remark, and Mason smiled
grimly. Fairchild rose and went to them.
"May I go along?"
"Yes, but not the girl. Not this time."
Anita did not demur. She moved to the big rocker beside the old base
burner and curled up in it. Fairchild walked to her side.
"You won't run away," he begged.
"I? Why?"
"Oh--I don't know. It--it just seems too good to be true!"
She laughed and pulled her cap from her head, allowing her wavy, brown
hair to fall about her shoulders, and over her face. Through it she
smiled up at him, and there was something in that smile which made
Fairchild's heart beat faster than ever.
"I 'll be right here," she answered, and with that assurance, he
followed the other two men out into the night.
Far down the street, where the rather bleak outlines of the hotel
showed bleaker than ever in the frigid night, a light was gleaming in a
second-story window. Mason turned to his fellow sheriff.
"He usually stays there. That must be him--waiting for the kid."
"Then we 'd better hurry--before somebody springs the news."
The three entered, to pass the drowsy night clerk, examine the register
and to find that their conjecture had been correct. Tiptoeing, they
went to the door and knocked. A high-pitched voice came from within.
"That you, Maurice?"
Fairchild answered in the best imitation he could give.
"Yes. I 've got Anita with me."
Steps, then the door opened. For just a second, Squint Rodaine stared
at them in ghastly, sickly fashion. Then he moved back into the room,
still facing them.
"What's the idea of this?" came his forced query. Fairchild stepped
forward.
"Simply to tell you that everything 's blown up as far as you 're
concerned, Mr. Rodaine."
"You needn't be so dramatic about it. You act like I 'd committed a
murder! What 've I done that you should--?"
"Just a minute. I would n't try to act innocent. For one thing, I
happened to be in the same house with you one night when you showed
Crazy Laura, your wife, how to make people immortal. And we 'll
probably learn a few more things about your character when we 've
gotten back there and interviewed--"
He stopped his accusations to leap forward, clutching wildly. But in
vain. With a lunge, Squint Rodaine had turned, then, springing high
from the floor, had seemed to double in the air as he crashed through
the big pane of the window and out to the twenty-foot plunge which
awaited him.
Blocked by the form of Fairchild, the two sheriffs sought in vain to
use the guns which they had drawn from their holsters. Hurriedly they
gained the window, but already the form of Rodaine had unrolled itself
from the snow bank into which it had fallen, dived beneath the
protection of the low coping which ran above the first-floor windows of
the hotel, skirted the building in safety and whirled into the alley
that lay beyond. Squint Rodaine was gone. Frantically, Fairchild
turned for the door, but a big hand stopped him.
"Let him go--let him think he 's gotten away," said grizzled Sheriff
Mason. "He ain't got a chance. There 's snow everywhere--and we can
trail him like a hound dawg trailing a rabbit. And I think I know
where he 's bound for. Whatever that was you said about Crazy Laura
hit awful close to home. It ain't going to be hard to find that
rattler!"
CHAPTER XXV
Fairchild felt the logic of the remark and ceased his worriment.
Quietly, as though nothing had happened, the three men went down the
stairs, passed the sleeping night clerk and headed back to the
sheriff's office, where waited Anita and Harry, who had completed his
last duties in regard to the chalky-faced Maurice Rodaine. The
telephone jangled. It was Denver. Mason talked a moment over the
wire, then turned to his fellow officer.
"They 've got Barnham. He was in his office, evidently waiting for a
call from here. What's more, he had close to a million dollars in
currency strapped around him. Pete Carr 's bringing him and the boodle
up to Ohadi on the morning train. Guess we 'd better stir up some
horses now and chase along, had n't we?"
"Yes, and get a gentle one for me," cautioned Harry. "It's been eight
years since I 've sit on the 'urricane deck of a 'orse!"
"That goes for me too," laughed Fairchild.
"And me--I like automobiles better," Anita was twisting her long hair
into a braid, to be once more shoved under her cap. Fairchild looked
at her with a new sense of proprietorship.
"You 're not going to be warm enough!"
"Oh, yes, I will."
"But--"
"I'll end the argument," boomed old Sheriff Mason, dragging a heavy fur
coat from a closet. "If she gets cold in this--I 'm crazy."
There was little chance. In fact, the only difficulty was to find the
girl herself, once she and the great coat were on the back of a saddle
horse. The start was made. Slowly the five figures circled the hotel
and into the alley, to follow the tracks in the snow to a barn far at
the edge of town. They looked within. A horse and saddle were
missing, and the tracks in the snow pointed the way they had gone.
There was nothing necessary but to follow.
A detour, then the tracks led the way to the Ohadi road, and behind
them came the pursuers, heads down against the wind, horses snorting
and coughing as they forced their way through the big drifts, each
following one another for the protection it afforded. A long, silent,
cold-gripped two hours,--then finally the lights of Ohadi.
But even then the trail was not difficult. The little town was asleep;
hardly a track showed in the streets beyond the hoofprints of a horse
leading up the principal thoroughfare and on out to the Georgeville
road. Onward, until before them was the bleak, rat-ridden old
roadhouse which formed Laura's home, and a light was gleaming within.
Silently the pursuers dismounted and started forward, only to stop
short. A scream had come to them, faint in the bluster of the storm,
the racking scream of a woman in a tempest of anger. Suddenly the
light seemed to bob about in the old house; it showed first at one
window--then another--as though some one were running from room to
room. Once two gaunt shadows stood forth--of a crouching man and a
woman, one hand extended in the air, as she whirled the lamp before her
for an instant and brought herself between its rays and those who
watched.
Again the chase and then the scream, louder than ever, accompanied by
streaking red flame which spread across the top floor like wind-blown
spray. Shadows weaved before the windows, while the flames seemed to
reach out and enwrap every portion of the upper floor. The staggering
figure of a man with the blaze all about him was visible; then a woman
who rushed past him. Groping as though blinded, the burning form of
the man weaved a moment before a window, clawing in a futile attempt to
open it, the flames, which seemed to leap from every portion of his
body, enwrapping him. Slowly, a torch-like, stricken thing, he sank
out of sight, and as the pursuers outside rushed forward, the figure of
a woman appeared on the old veranda, half naked, shrieking, carrying
something tightly locked in her arms, and plunged down the steps into
the snow.
Fairchild, circling far to one side, caught her, and with all his
strength resisted her squirming efforts until Harry and Bardwell had
come to his assistance. It was Crazy Laura, the contents of her arms
now showing in the light of the flames as they licked every window of
the upper portion of the house,--five heavy, sheepskin-bound books of
the ledger type, wrapped tight in a grasp that not even Harry could
loosen.
"Don't take them from me!" the insane woman screamed. "He tried it,
didn't he? And where 's he now--up there burning! He hit me--and I
threw the lamp at him! He wanted my books--he wanted to take them away
from me--but I would n't let him. And you can't have them--hear
me--let go of my arm--let go!"
She bit at them. She twisted and butted them with her gray head. She
screamed and squirmed,--at last to weaken. Slowly Harry forced her
arms aside and took from them the precious contents,--whatever they
might be. Grimly old Sheriff Mason wrapped her in his coat and led her
to a horse, there to force her to mount and ride with him into town.
The house--with Squint Rodaine--was gone. Already the flame was
breaking through the roof in a dozen places. It would be ashes before
the antiquated fire department of the little town of Ohadi could reach
there.
Back in the office of Sheriff Bardwell the books--were opened, and
Fairchild uttered an exclamation.
"Harry! Did n't she talk about her books at the Coroner's inquest?"
"Yeh. That's them. Them 's her dairy."
"Diary," Anita corrected. "Everybody knows about that--she writes
everything down in there. And the funny part about it, they say, is
that when she's writing, her mind is straight and she knows what she's
done and tells about it. They 've tried her out."
Fairchild was leaning forward.
"See if there 's any entry along early in July--about the time of the
inquest."
Bardwell turned the closely written pages, with their items set forth
with a slight margin and a double line dividing them from the events
tabulated above. At last he stopped.
"Testified to-day at the inquest," he read. "I lied. Roady made me do
it. I never saw anybody quarreling. Besides, I did it myself."
"What's she mean--did it herself?" the sheriff looked up. "Guess we
'll have to go 'way back for that."
"First let's see how accurate the thing is," Fairchild interrupted.
"See if there 's an item under November 9 of this year."
The sheriff searched, then read:
"I dug a grave to-night. It was not filled. The immortal thing left
me. I knew it would. Roady had come and told me to dig a grave and
put it in there. I did. We filled it with quicklime. Then we went
upstairs and it was gone. I do not understand it. If Roady wanted me
to kill him, why did n't he say so. I will kill if Roady will be good
to me. I 've killed before for him."
"Still referring to somebody she 's killed," cut in Anita. "I wonder
if it could be possible--"
"I 've just thought of the date!" Harry broke in excitedly. "It was
along about June 7, 1892. I 'm sure it was around there."
The old books were mulled over, one after the other. At last Bardwell
leaned forward and pointed to a certain page.
"Here's an item under May 28. It says: 'Roady has been at me again!
He wants me to fix things so that the three men in the Blue Poppy mine
will get caught in there by a cave-in.'" The sheriff looked up. "This
seems to read a little better than the other stuff. It's not so
jagged. Don't guess she was as much off her nut then as she is now.
Let's see. Where 's the place? Oh, yes: 'If I 'll help him, I can
have half, and we 'll live together again, and he 'll be good to me and
I can have the boy. I know what it's all about. He wants to get the
mine without Sissie Larsen having anything to do with it. Sissie has
cemented up the hole he drilled into the pay ore and has n't told
Fairchild about it, because he thinks Roady will go partnerships with
him and help him buy in. But Roady won't do it. He wants that extra
money for me. He told me so. Roady is good to me sometimes. He
kisses me and makes over me just like he did the night our boy was
born. But that's when he wants me to do something. If he 'll keep his
promise I 'll fix the mine so they won't get out. Then we can buy it
at public sale or from the heirs; and Roady and I will live together
again.'"
"The poor old soul," there was aching sympathy in Anita Richmond's
voice. "I--I can't help it if she was willing to kill people. The
poor old thing was crazy."
"Yes, and she 's 'ad us bloody near crazy too. Maybe there 's another
entry."
"I 'm coming to it. It's along in June. The date 's blurred. Listen:
'I did what Roady wanted me to. I sneaked into the mine and planted
dynamite in the timbers. I wanted to wait until the third man was
there, but I could n't. Fairchild and Larsen were fussing. Fairchild
had learned about the hole and wanted to know what Larsen had found.
Finally Larsen pulled a gun and shot Fairchild. He fell, and I knew he
was dead. Then Larsen bent over him, and when he did I hit him--on the
head with a single-jack hammer. Then I set off the charge. Nobody
ever will know how it happened unless they find the bullet or the gun.
I don't care if they do. Roady wanted me to do it.'"
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