CHAPTER XII
BILLY TO THE RESCUE
IT WAS nearly ten o'clock the following morning when Barbara,
sitting upon the veranda of the ranchhouse, saw her father
approaching from the direction of the office. His face wore a
troubled expression which the girl could not but note.
"What's the matter, Papa?" she asked, as he sank into a
chair at her side.
"Your self-sacrifice of last evening was all to no avail," he
replied. "Bridge has been captured by Villistas."
"What?" cried the girl. "You can't mean it--how did you
learn?"
"Grayson just had a phone message from Cuivaca," he
explained. "They only repaired the line yesterday since Pesita's
men cut it last month. This was our first message. And do
you know, Barbara, I can't help feeling sorry. I had hoped
that he would get away."
"So had I," said the girl.
Her father was eyeing her closely to note the effect of his
announcement upon her; but he could see no greater concern
reflected than that which he himself felt for a fellow-man and
an American who was doomed to death at the hands of an
alien race, far from his own land and his own people.
"Can nothing be done?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he replied with finality. "I have talked it over
with Grayson and he assures me that an attempt at intervention
upon our part might tend to antagonize Villa, in which
case we are all as good as lost. He is none too fond of us as it
is, and Grayson believes, and not without reason, that he
would welcome the slightest pretext for withdrawing the
protection of his favor. Instantly he did that we should become
the prey of every marauding band that infests the mountains.
Not only would Pesita swoop down upon us, but those
companies of freebooters which acknowledge nominal loyalty
to Villa would be about our ears in no time. No, dear, we
may do nothing. The young man has made his bed, and now
I am afraid that he will have to lie in it alone."
For awhile the girl sat in silence, and presently her father
arose and entered the house. Shortly after she followed him,
reappearing soon in riding togs and walking rapidly to the
corrals. Here she found an American cowboy busily engaged
in whittling a stick as he sat upon an upturned cracker box
and shot accurate streams of tobacco juice at a couple of
industrious tumble bugs that had had the great impudence to
roll their little ball of provender within the whittler's range.
"O Eddie!" she cried.
The man looked up, and was at once electrified into action.
He sprang to his feet and whipped off his sombrero. A broad
smile illumined his freckled face.
"Yes, miss," he answered. "What can I do for you?"
"Saddle a pony for me, Eddie," she explained. "I want to
take a little ride."
"Sure!" he assured her cheerily. "Have it ready in a jiffy,"
and away he went, uncoiling his riata, toward the little group
of saddle ponies which stood in the corral against necessity for
instant use.
In a couple of minutes he came back leading one, which he
tied to the corral bars.
"But I can't ride that horse," exclaimed the girl. "He
bucks."
"Sure," said Eddie. "I'm a-goin' to ride him."
"Oh, are you going somewhere?" she asked.
"I'm goin' with you, miss," announced Eddie, sheepishly.
"But I didn't ask you, Eddie, and I don't want you--
today," she urged.
"Sorry, miss," he threw back over his shoulder as he
walked back to rope a second pony; "but them's orders.
You're not to be allowed to ride no place without a escort.
'Twouldn't be safe neither, miss," he almost pleaded, "an' I
won't hinder you none. I'll ride behind far enough to be there
ef I'm needed."
Directly he came back with another pony, a sad-eyed,
gentle-appearing little beast, and commenced saddling and
bridling the two.
"Will you promise," she asked, after watching him in silence
for a time, "that you will tell no one where I go or whom I
see?"
"Cross my heart hope to die," he assured her.
"All right, Eddie, then I'll let you come with me, and you
can ride beside me, instead of behind."
Across the flat they rode, following the windings of the
river road, one mile, two, five, ten. Eddie had long since been
wondering what the purpose of so steady a pace could be.
This was no pleasure ride which took the boss's daughter--
"heifer," Eddie would have called her--ten miles up river at a
hard trot. Eddie was worried, too. They had passed the
danger line, and were well within the stamping ground of
Pesita and his retainers. Here each little adobe dwelling, and
they were scattered at intervals of a mile or more along the
river, contained a rabid partisan of Pesita, or it contained no
one--Pesita had seen to this latter condition personally.
At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and
dilapidated hut. Eddie gasped. It was Jose's, and Jose was a
notorious scoundrel whom old age alone kept from the active
pursuit of the only calling he ever had known--brigandage.
Why should the boss's daughter come to Jose? Jose was hand
in glove with every cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within
a radius of two hundred miles of his abode.
Barbara swung herself from the saddle, and handed her
bridle reins to Eddie.
"Hold him, please," she said. "I'll be gone but a moment."
"You're not goin' in there to see old Jose alone?" gasped
Eddie.
"Why not?" she asked. "If you're afraid you can leave my
horse and ride along home."
Eddie colored to the roots of his sandy hair, and kept
silent. The girl approached the doorway of the mean hovel
and peered within. At one end sat a bent old man, smoking.
He looked up as Barbara's figure darkened the doorway.
"Jose!" said the girl.
The old man rose to his feet and came toward her.
"Eh? Senorita, eh?" he cackled.
"You are Jose?" she asked.
"Si, senorita," replied the old Indian. "What can poor old
Jose do to serve the beautiful senorita?"
"You can carry a message to one of Pesita's officers,"
replied the girl. "I have heard much about you since I came to
Mexico. I know that there is not another man in this part of
Chihuahua who may so easily reach Pesita as you." She raised
her hand for silence as the Indian would have protested. Then
she reached into the pocket of her riding breeches and withdrew
a handful of silver which she permitted to trickle, tinklingly,
from one palm to the other. "I wish you to go to the
camp of Pesita," she continued, "and carry word to the man
who robbed the bank at Cuivaca--he is an American--that
his friend, Senor Bridge has been captured by Villa and is
being held for execution in Cuivaca. You must go at once--
you must get word to Senor Bridge's friend so that help may
reach Senor Bridge before dawn. Do you understand?"
The Indian nodded assent.
"Here," said the girl, "is a payment on account. When I
know that you delivered the message in time you shall have as
much more. Will you do it?"
"I will try," said the Indian, and stretched forth a clawlike
hand for the money.
"Good!" exclaimed Barbara. "Now start at once," and she
dropped the silver coins into the old man's palm.
It was dusk when Captain Billy Byrne was summoned to
the tent of Pesita. There he found a weazened, old Indian
squatting at the side of the outlaw.
"Jose," said Pesita, "has word for you."
Billy Byrne turned questioningly toward the Indian.
"I have been sent, Senor Capitan," explained Jose, "by the
beautiful senorita of El Orobo Rancho to tell you that your
friend, Senor Bridge, has been captured by General Villa, and
is being held at Cuivaca, where he will doubtless be shot--if
help does not reach him before tomorrow morning."
Pesita was looking questioningly at Byrne. Since the gringo
had returned from Cuivaca with the loot of the bank and
turned the last penny of it over to him the outlaw had looked
upon his new captain as something just short of superhuman.
To have robbed the bank thus easily while Villa's soldiers
paced back and forth before the doorway seemed little short
of an indication of miraculous powers, while to have turned
the loot over intact to his chief, not asking for so much as a
peso of it, was absolutely incredible.
Pesita could not understand this man; but he admired him
greatly and feared him, too. Such a man was worth a hundred
of the ordinary run of humanity that enlisted beneath Pesita's
banners. Byrne had but to ask a favor to have it granted, and
now, when he called upon Pesita to furnish him with a
suitable force for the rescue of Bridge the brigand enthusiastically
acceded to his demands.
"I will come," he exclaimed, "and all my men shall ride
with me. We will take Cuivaca by storm. We may even
capture Villa himself."
"Wait a minute, bo," interrupted Billy Byrne. "Don't get
excited. I'm lookin' to get my pal outen' Cuivaca. After that I
don't care who you capture; but I'm goin' to get Bridgie out
first. I ken do it with twenty-five men--if it ain't too late.
Then, if you want to, you can shoot up the town. Lemme
have the twenty-five, an' you hang around the edges with the
rest of 'em 'til I'm done. Whaddaya say?"
Pesita was willing to agree to anything, and so it came that
half an hour later Billy Byrne was leading a choice selection of
some two dozen cutthroats down through the hills toward
Cuivaca. While a couple of miles in the rear followed Pesita
with the balance of his band.
Billy rode until the few remaining lights of Cuivaca shone
but a short distance ahead and they could hear plainly the
strains of a grating graphophone from beyond the open windows
of a dance hall, and the voices of the sentries as they
called the hour.
"Stay here," said Billy to a sergeant at his side, "until you
hear a hoot owl cry three times from the direction of the
barracks and guardhouse, then charge the opposite end of the
town, firing off your carbines like hell an' yellin' yer heads off.
Make all the racket you can, an' keep it up 'til you get 'em
comin' in your direction, see? Then turn an' drop back slowly,
eggin' 'em on, but holdin' 'em to it as long as you can. Do
you get me, bo?"
From the mixture of Spanish and English and Granavenooish
the sergeant gleaned enough of the intent of his commander to
permit him to salute and admit that he understood
what was required of him.
Having given his instructions Billy Byrne rode off to the
west, circled Cuivaca and came close up upon the southern
edge of the little village. Here he dismounted and left his horse
hidden behind an outbuilding, while he crept cautiously forward
to reconnoiter.
He knew that the force within the village had no reason to
fear attack. Villa knew where the main bodies of his enemies
lay, and that no force could approach Cuivaca without word
of its coming reaching the garrison many hours in advance of
the foe. That Pesita, or another of the several bandit chiefs in
the neighborhood would dare descend upon a garrisoned
town never for a moment entered the calculations of the rebel
leader.
For these reasons Billy argued that Cuivaca would be
poorly guarded. On the night he had spent there he had seen
sentries before the bank, the guardhouse, and the barracks in
addition to one who paced to and fro in front of the house in
which the commander of the garrison maintained his headquarters.
Aside from these the town was unguarded.
Nor were conditions different tonight. Billy came within a
hundred yards of the guardhouse before he discovered a
sentinel. The fellow lolled upon his gun in front of the
building--an adobe structure in the rear of the barracks. The
other three sides of the guardhouse appeared to be unwatched.
Billy threw himself upon his stomach and crawled slowly
forward stopping often. The sentry seemed asleep. He did not
move. Billy reached the shadow at the side of the structure
and some fifty feet from the soldier without detection. Then he
rose to his feet directly beneath a barred window.
Within Bridge paced back and forth the length of the little
building. He could not sleep. Tomorrow he was to be shot!
Bridge did not wish to die. That very morning General Villa
in person had examined him. The general had been exceedingly
wroth--the sting of the theft of his funds still irritated him;
but he had given Bridge no inkling as to his fate. It had
remained for a fellow-prisoner to do that. This man, a deserter,
was to be shot, so he said, with Bridge, a fact which gave
him an additional twenty-four hours of life, since, he asserted,
General Villa wished to be elsewhere than in Cuivaca when
an American was executed. Thus he could disclaim responsibility
for the act.
The general was to depart in the morning. Shortly after,
Bridge and the deserter would be led out and blindfolded
before a stone wall--if there was such a thing, or a brick wall,
or an adobe wall. It made little difference to the deserter, or to
Bridge either. The wall was but a trivial factor. It might go far
to add romance to whomever should read of the affair later;
but in so far as Bridge and the deserter were concerned it
meant nothing. A billboard, thought Bridge, bearing the slogan:
"Eventually! Why not now?" would have been equally
as efficacious and far more appropriate.
The room in which he was confined was stuffy with the
odor of accumulated filth. Two small barred windows alone
gave means of ventilation. He and the deserter were the only
prisoners. The latter slept as soundly as though the morrow
held nothing more momentous in his destiny than any of the
days that had preceded it. Bridge was moved to kick the
fellow into consciousness of his impending fate. Instead he
walked to the south window to fill his lungs with the free air
beyond his prison pen, and gaze sorrowfully at the star-lit sky
which he should never again behold.
In a low tone Bridge crooned a snatch of the poem that he
and Billy liked best:
And you, my sweet Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me,
With buds of roses in your hair and kisses on your mouth.
Bridge's mental vision was concentrated upon the veranda
of a white-walled ranchhouse to the east. He shook his head
angrily.
"It's just as well," he thought. "She's not for me."
Something moved upon the ground beyond the window.
Bridge became suddenly intent upon the thing. He saw it rise
and resolve itself into the figure of a man, and then, in a low
whisper, came a familiar voice:
"There ain't no roses in my hair, but there's a barker in my
shirt, an' another at me side. Here's one of 'em. They got
kisses beat a city block. How's the door o' this thing fastened?"
The speaker was quite close to the window now, his
face but a few inches from Bridge's.
"Billy!" ejaculated the condemned man.
"Surest thing you know; but about the door?"
"Just a heavy bar on the outside," replied Bridge.
"Easy," commented Billy, relieved. "Get ready to beat it
when I open the door. I got a pony south o' town that'll have
to carry double for a little way tonight."
"God bless you, Billy!" whispered Bridge, fervently.
"Lay low a few minutes," said Billy, and moved away
toward the rear of the guardhouse.
A few minutes later there broke upon the night air the
dismal hoot of an owl. At intervals of a few seconds it was
repeated twice. The sentry before the guardhouse shifted his
position and looked about, then he settled back, transferring
his weight to the other foot, and resumed his bovine meditations.
The man at the rear of the guardhouse moved silently along
the side of the structure until he stood within a few feet of the
unsuspecting sentinel, hidden from him by the corner of the
building. A heavy revolver dangled from his right hand. He
held it loosely by the barrel, and waited.
For five minutes the silence of the night was unbroken,
then from the east came a single shot, followed immediately by
a scattering fusillade and a chorus of hoarse cries.
Billy Byrne smiled. The sentry resumed indications of
quickness. From the barracks beyond the guardhouse came sharp
commands and the sounds of men running. From the opposite
end of the town the noise of battle welled up to ominous
proportions.
Billy heard the soldiers stream from their quarters and a
moment later saw them trot up the street at the double.
Everyone was moving toward the opposite end of the town
except the lone sentinel before the guardhouse. The moment
seemed propitious for his attempt.
Billy peered around the corner of the guardhouse. Conditions
were just as he had pictured they would be. The sentry
stood gazing in the direction of the firing, his back toward the
guardhouse door and Billy.
With a bound the American cleared the space between
himself and the unsuspecting and unfortunate soldier. The butt
of the heavy revolver fell, almost noiselessly, upon the back of
the sentry's head, and the man sank to the ground without
even a moan.
Turning to the door Billy knocked the bar from its place,
the door swung in and Bridge slipped through to liberty.
"Quick!" said Billy. "Follow me," and turned at a rapid
run toward the south edge of the town. He made no effort
now to conceal his movements. Speed was the only essential,
and the two covered the ground swiftly and openly without
any attempt to take advantage of cover.
They reached Billy's horse unnoticed, and a moment later
were trotting toward the west to circle the town and regain
the trail to the north and safety.
To the east they heard the diminishing rifle fire of the
combatants as Pesita's men fell steadily back before the
defenders, and drew them away from Cuivaca in accordance
with Billy's plan.
"Like takin' candy from a baby," said Billy, when the
flickering lights of Cuivaca shone to the south of them, and
the road ahead lay clear to the rendezvous of the brigands.
"Yes," agreed Bridge; "but what I'd like to know, Billy, is
how you found out I was there."
"Penelope," said Byrne, laughing.
"Penelope!" queried Bridge. "I'm not at all sure that I
follow you, Billy."
"Well, seein' as you're sittin' on behind you can't be leadin'
me," returned Billy; "but cuttin' the kid it was a skirt tipped it
off to me where you was--the beautiful senorita of El Orobo
Rancho, I think Jose called her. Now are you hep?"
Bridge gave an exclamation of astonishment. "God bless
her!" he said. "She did that for me?"
"She sure did," Billy assured him, "an' I'll bet an iron case
she's a-waitin' for you there with buds o' roses in her hair an'
kisses on her mouth, you old son-of-a-gun, you." Billy laughed
happily. He was happy anyway at having rescued Bridge,
and the knowledge that his friend was in love and that the girl
reciprocated his affection--all of which Billy assumed as the
only explanation of her interest in Bridge--only added to his
joy. "She ain't a greaser is she?" he asked presently.
"I should say not," replied Bridge. "She's a perfect queen
from New York City; but, Billy, she's not for me. What she
did was prompted by a generous heart. She couldn't care for
me, Billy. Her father is a wealthy man--he could have the
pick of the land--of many lands--if she cared to marry. You
don't think for a minute she'd want a hobo, do you?"
"You can't most always tell," replied Billy, a trifle sadly. "I
knew such a queen once who would have chosen a mucker, if
he'd a-let her. You're stuck on her, ol' man?"
"I'm afraid I am, Billy," Bridge admitted; "but what's the
use? Let's forget it. Oh, say, is this the horse I let you take
the night you robbed the bank?"
"Yes," said Billy; "same little pony, an' a mighty
well-behaved one, too. Why?"
"It's hers," said Bridge.
"An' she wants it back?"
"She didn't say so; but I'd like to get it to her some way,"
said Bridge.
"You ride it back when you go," suggested Billy.
"But I can't go back," said Bridge; "it was Grayson, the
foreman, who made it so hot for me I had to leave. He tried
to arrest me and send me to Villa."
"What for?" asked Billy.
"He didn't like me, and wanted to get rid of me." Bridge
wouldn't say that his relations with Billy had brought him into
trouble.
"Oh, well, I'll take it back myself then, and at the same
time I'll tell Penelope what a regular fellow you are, and
punch in the foreman's face for good luck."
"No, you mustn't go there. They know you now. It was
some of El Orobo's men you shot up day before yesterday
when you took their steers from them. They recognized the
pony, and one of them had seen you in Cuivaca the night of
the robbery. They would be sure to get you, Billy."
Shortly the two came in touch with the retreating Pesitistas
who were riding slowly toward their mountain camp. Their
pursuers had long since given up the chase, fearing that they
might be being lured into the midst of a greatly superior force,
and had returned to Cuivaca.
It was nearly morning when Bridge and Billy threw themselves
down upon the latter's blankets, fagged.
"Well, well," murmured Billy Byrne; "li'l ol' Bridgie's found
his Penelope," and fell asleep.
