Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 66/Number 3/East of Sunrise/Chapter 11

ITH Ethel Norcross as a passenger in their car, Blake and Reeves had a trying trip southward along the Hermosito Trail. They had two blow-outs; for the intense heat, coupled with the grinding of the tires through the sand, expanded to the bursting point the air in the tubes. Then engine trouble developed, and much time was lost while Reeves experimented with the motor.

Had everything gone well with them they might have reached the pass east of Sunrise Cañon before Red Galloway, driving Sandy, had entered it; or, better still, they might have overtaken Galloway on the trail between the hogback and the pass. In the latter event a tragedy would have been averted. But it was not to be.

Nor did they meet Chombo, racing northward with the led horse. The far-flung rays of their headlights, gleaming across the desert, was sufficient warning for the half-breed, and he had turned from the trail and lost himself in the greasewood brush until the car had passed.

Blake and Reeves searched the dark pass with their flash lights as well as they could, but the search was in vain. The delays they had experienced had brought them into the pass after sundown, and there was not much chance of making any important discoveries. They decided to proceed to Los Cerillos and return to the pass the next morning to make a thorough investigation by daylight.

There were no more than a dozen adobes in the camp, the more pretentious being the store and hotel operated by the proprietors—now by the proprietor—of the Pelican Mine. It was the mine alone that gave the camp its excuse for existence.

Ethel, anxious to find and warn Seward and grievously disappointed because they had failed to do so, went to the hotel and there passed the remaining hours of the night. Blake and Reeves stayed with a deputy who was the sole representative of the law in that region. In the morning, Blake and Reeves had breakfast with Ethel at the hotel; then, following the meal, they took the girl to a corral back of the hotel and showed her Sandy, Seward’s burro, contentedly munching a ration of hay inside the inclosure.

“I told you, Ethel!” exclaimed Blake “Seward’s here, and you have had all your worry for nothing.”

A magical change came over the girl. Her face brightened, her brown eyes glowed, and then her brows knitted in a puzzled frown. “But where is he if he’s in the camp?” she asked.

“Probably over at the Pelican Mine,” Blake told her; “his business would take him there, wouldn’t it? Besides, Sparling, the new owner of the mine, is an old friend of Seward’s; they used to know each other in the East.”

“I’ll go over there at once,” said Ethel, turning away.

“Just a moment, before you go,” interposed Blake.

He led her to a shed beside the corral and showed her the pack taken from the burro. “What’s all this, do you suppose?” the sheriff asked, dipping a hand into one of the saddlebags and bringing into sight a handful of iron washers.

Ethel was amazed. “Why,” she exclaimed, “he put the gold in the saddle-bags! I saw him!”

“Have you any theory to account for these iron washers being in the bags now, in place of the gold?” Blake asked her.

The girl shook her head, bewildered.

“Well, Joe and I have a theory,” the sheriff went on; “somehow, Seward got the idea that he was going to have trouble on the trip south, so he made up a dummy package.” Blake laughed. “That’s a regular Seward trick play,” he added. “These are big washers, and they’ll probably weigh as much as five thousand dollars in gold.” He kicked the bags vigorously. “Certainly they rattle like the real thing.”

“When was the burro brought in?” asked Ethel.

“We weren’t concerned about that. He wasn’t here last night when we arrived, and he was here this morning when we got up and started for the hotel. You can’t down Seward of Sacatone, by gorry! A hundred Chombos and a hundred Lola Sangers wouldn’t be equal to it. Run along to the mine, Ethel. Joe and I will smoke our pipes in the hotel office until you come back with Seward.”

The mine was just over a hill, and the stamp mill was pounding away on the ore as Ethel came down the slope toward the headquarters’ adobe. The office door was open, and she had a look inside before she stepped across the threshold.

The adobe contained a single room, meagerly furnished with a desk, a letter file, a mineral cabinet in one corner, and two or three chairs. A woman of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, as Ethel judged, was sitting before the desk. A man in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers was walking up and down beside the desk. He was a small man, and both he and the woman bore about them the unmistakable impress of the East.

“I tell you, Leora,” the man was saying, “I’m going to be the mining king of this part of the country. With five thousand dollars in cash I can buy out old man Holsaple’s prospect, next to the Pelican property, farther down the valley. The Pelican lead is under the Holsaple holdings. That’s what I’m going to use that money for when it comes from Tres Alamos. Holsaple is an old hassayamper, and he won’t take my check; he’s got to have the money, cash down.”

There was something in this that brought a flutter of apprehension to Ethel Norcross. The money, then, had not arrived from Tres Alamos. Where was Walt Seward? His burro was in the corral; but where was he?

Ethel entered the room. “Pardon me,” she said, “but I came here to ask about Mr. Seward. Can you tell me where he is?”

The little man in the knickers whirled to an about-face. The woman at the desk rose instantly to her feet.

“You mean Seward of Sacatone?” asked the man.

“Yes.”

“What makes you think we know anything about him? He is one of these desert adventurers, rowdy, and half desperado. He”

“Stop!” cried Ethel. “You’re the only man I ever heard speak of Mr. Seward in that slighting way. I am Miss Norcross, daughter of the junior partner of Simms & Norcross at Tres Alamos. The money you wanted was sent to you several days ago by Simms & Norcross, and Mr. Seward was bringing it to you. Mr. Seward told us that you were an old friend of his, and that he’d be glad to oblige you. But I guess,” the girl added with biting sarcasm, “that he was mistaken.”

“He was not mistaken, Miss Norcross.” said the other woman. “I am Mrs. Sparling, and my husband here spoke hastily—and ungenerously.” She took Ethel’s hand in a friendly way and then presented her to Mr. Sparling. “We are already under a great obligation to Mr. Banford, and when he brings the money we shall be still further in his debt.”

“Mr. Banford?” echoed Ethel blankly.

Sparling laughed. “This desert hero,” he explained, “goes by one name in the East and another in the West. It’s a habit of some people, you know, to change their names west of the Missouri. Banford did that, probably because he found it necessary.”

“He did not find it necessary,” said Mrs. Sparling, shooting a glance of sharp disapproval at her husband; “his name is Walter Seward Banford, and he chooses to be known here in the Southwest as Walter Seward. He has made no change—merely dropped his last name.”

“I am not interested in that,” returned Ethel, “for if Mr. Seward changed his name, or dropped only part of it, it would make no difference to his friends out here. We know him for what he is, and that’s enough.”

“All the same,” insisted Sparling, who seemed determined to be disagreeable, “if you started him off with that money, more than likely I’ll never see it.”

Ethel turned on the little man with flashing eyes. “Do you mean to infer that Mr. Seward is untrustworthy?” she demanded.

“Well, figure it out for yourself. He started with the money, and he hasn’t delivered it. What’s the answer?”

“There might be several answers, and all of them more to Walt Seward’s credit than his discredit.” Ethel was indignant. “I was planning to bring your money myself, as Mr. Simms could not leave, and my father was not well enough to make the trip. There have been a number of holdups lately, however, and Mr. Seward did not think it safe for me to act as the messenger. He offered to bring the money himself, because father and I were his friends, and he considered you and Mrs. Sparling his friends. He wanted to do whatever he could for all of us.

“Since he started for Los Cerillos,” Ethel continued, “we have discovered that certain enemies of his learned that he was bringing the gold, and they laid a trap for him. That is why I am here this morning. In his effort to oblige you, Mr. Sparling, he has been plunged into terrible danger. The sheriff of Tres Alamos and one of his deputies came with me, and they are at the hotel now. Mr. Seward’s burro is in the hotel corral, and we supposed that Mr. Seward must be here. I—I don’t know what to think.”

Mrs. Sparling seemed genuinely alarmed, but her husband appeared rather exultant.

“All I’ve heard since I’ve been at this mine,” he remarked, “are wild yarns about this Seward of Sacatone. He seems to have done more things that couldn’t be done, more things that are humanly impossible, than any little tin god on wheels I ever heard of. And my wife,” he went on angrily, “has been questioning everybody and writing the fairy tales down in a book! I’d be glad to lose that money, just to know Seward had decamped with it. He’s bound to show his true colors, give him time.”

“My husband,” observed Mrs. Sparling, “wishes to become the mining king of this part of the country. He is jealous, I think, of the fame of Seward of Sacatone; and he doesn’t mean a word he says, Miss Norcross; not a word!”

Sparling puffed out his chest and stamped the floor. “And my own wife can say that of me!” he exclaimed tragically. “I wish this Seward of Sacatone was here, so I could tell him a few things!” he finished fiercely.

“Then,” said Ethel, suddenly sobered, a happy light glowing in her brown eyes, “you are to have your wish, for here he comes.”

Mrs. Sparling had brown eyes also. There was a haunting light in them, a light of mystery, as she looked through the open door in the direction in which Ethel was gazing.

Yes; Seward of Sacatone was coming. His hat was gone, his khaki shirt was thick with alkali dust, and there was an ugly bruise on his face. But what really aroused apprehension was the fact that Blake, the sheriff, was coming with him, and Blake was leading him by the hand. In the crook of his left arm Seward was carrying a weighted bag.

“What is the matter?” whispered Mrs. Sparling agitatedly. “What do you suppose can be the matter?”

“Nothing matters,” said Ethel calmly, “so long as he is really here. He is bringing your money, Mr. Sparling, and it is plain that he has had to fight to keep it for you. But that is like him. He will fight and fight hard to help—a friend.”

Slowly, stumblingly, Seward approached, guided by the hand of the sheriff.

“It seems good, Jerry,” those in the office heard him say to Blake, “to be around where my friends are once more.”

“That’s the idea, Walt,” answered Blake. “Steady! Here we are.”