At Brady’s soft-spoken words, Barnstaple’s shoulders stiffened. He came to a halt and turned almost leisurely, but with his right hand raising to hang over the butt of his Colt. Cold, wary anger warred with the faint play of puzzlement on his handsome features.
Also turning, the distinguished-looking man’s companions realized that something had gone wrong. Their fighting instincts gave warning that there was trouble very close ahead.
That showed in their employer’s posture.
It was even more obvious from the menace exuded by the stocky man and the taller, battered-faced red-head.
The former still held his big Winchester horizontally at waist level, but his left forefinger was inside its trigger guard. Although the tatter’s Colt was dangling at his side in an apparently negligent manner, its muzzle directed at the ground, his right thumb was curled about its hammer-spur and the first finger rested on the trigger.
With a perplexed expression on her pretty, if bruised face, the blonde girl had fallen behind Brady and Jeff. She stood to their rear, her right hand resting on the butt of the Merwin & Hulbert revolver in her waistband.
‘I don’t suppose it would be any use my pretending I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Anchor? Barnstaple asked, throwing a quick glance at Sybil.
‘Not a whole heap,’ Brady assured him. ‘You’ve proved that you’re Thinking Fernelley.’
‘Where did I go wrong, Mr. Anchor?’ the distinguished-looking man inquired. ‘I’d really like to know.’
‘Having Elvira killed,’ Brady explained, watching the four men and having an uneasy feeling that he had committed an error in his tactics. ‘I knew Brolley hadn’t shot her. His bullet’s in the wall over the door. And, anyways, from the front and level with her, he couldn’t have hit her in the side of the head. The bullet came down at an angle, from the rim of the valley. As soon as I saw you headed this way, I knew what had happened, and why.’
‘Go ahead,’ Barnstaple—or Thinking Fernelley—offered. ‘Why did I have her killed?’
‘Because she’s the only one here who knew you,’ Brady elaborated. ‘The rest of us would take you for the Vice-President of the Texas Bankers’ Protective Association, but she’d’ve known you.’
‘And told you who I was, before I could get near enough to talk to you,’ Barnstaple expanded when Brady paused. ‘We’d just reached the rim after those three started down with your nephew. So we waited and watched. I’d an idea what their game was and figured that you’d outsmart them. When Elvira came out, it was too good a chance to miss. Handled right, you should have accepted that she was shot by the outlaw. After that—’
‘You’d come down here like we was all friends and gun us down,’ Jeff guessed. ‘Which’d be a whole heap safer and more certain than trying to take us in a long range fight.’
‘I must admit that such an idea had crossed my mind,’ Barnstaple declared. ‘And, with a minor variation or so, that’s what I still intend to do.’
‘Except that we’ve got our guns in hand and yours’re still in leather,’ Brady drawled. ‘You four against us two would be fair odds for you.’
‘That’s true,’ Barnstaple answered. ‘Except for one point. If Sybil wasn’t standing behind you, I’d concede that you hold the best cards.’ He smiled in a mocking manner and went on. ‘She’s not a Special Investigator for the Association. The card she showed you was a fake.’
‘I’m afraid that’s true, Mr. Anchor,’ the girl confirmed in an apologetic tone, taking the Merwin & Hulbert from her waistband. ‘But the one in the lining of my riding boot is genuine enough. Of course, you haven’t seen that one, have you, Mr. Barnstaple—or should I say Fernelley?’
‘Get them!’ snapped the distinguished-looking man, realizing what the girl’s words meant, and his right hand stabbed towards the Colt.
Never had Brady and Jeff seen such speed. Despite their advantages in the matter of holding their weapons and not needing to draw, Barnstaple’s revolver was leaving its carefully-designed holster before they had turned their firearms into firing positions.
The Merwin & Hulbert in Sybil’s hand cracked. Shock and pain twisted at Barnstaple’s face as the .45 bullet tore into his chest. Going off, his Colt flung a bullet which fanned the air close to Brady’s head. If the girl had delayed a fraction of a second, he would have been killed. As it was, she had hit Barnstaple and caused his weapon to turn just enough to save Brady from certain death.
Deftly Brady pivoted the Winchester’s barrel to the front. Barnstaple’s companions were commencing their draws. While none of them approached their employer in speed or ability, they were clearly not men with whom it would be safe to trifle.
Pivoting his right elbow, Jeff turned the borrowed Colt rapidly into instinctive, waist-level alignment. Just in time, he saw that he would not need to deal with Barnstaple. So he altered his point of aim, thumbing a bullet into Tolbow’s body. Cocking the hammer at the peak of the Colt’s recoil kick, he prepared to continue shooting. However, the man’s left hand left its gun butt without completing his draw and he went down. Jeff gave his attention to the remainder of Barnstaple’s party.
Brady could not prevent himself from squeezing the Winchester’s trigger. The .50 caliber ball slammed into Barnstaple’s ribs as he was being spun around by Sybil’s bullet and he pitched sideways for several feet. Working the lever in a blur-like motion, Brady replenished the chamber and swung the barrel horizontally. He selected Morley as the more dangerous of the range-dressed duo. Remembering his suspicions that this was the man whose Remington rifle had caused Elvira’s death, Brady had an added incentive to settle him. Again the heavy rifle bellowed. Struck in the mouth, Morley hurtled backwards in a spinning run. He smashed down alongside his employer and his head was an even more gory ruin than the widow’s might have been.
‘I quit!’ Hoydan screeched, flinging aside his revolver the instant it had cleared the lip of his holster. ‘Don’t shoot. I’m done!’
‘Leave him be, nephew!’ Brady ordered. ‘We need somebody to dig the graves and he looks the man to do it.’
Telling Jeff to take Hoydan and find the means to dig the graves, Brady looked at Sybil.
‘I reckon we should have a talk, young lady.’
‘Can we go down to the gate?’ the girl asked, looking at the house with a shudder. ‘I feel as if we’re being watched.’
‘Come on then,’ Brady assented and escorted her to the gate.
‘I will have to slit the lining of my boot to show you my real identification card,’ Sybil pointed out. ‘Have you a knife?’
‘We’ll leave that for a spell,’ Brady decided, watching Jeff and Hoydan taking a pick and shovel from the wagon. ‘Tell me your side of the story, then we’ll go and find the counterfeiting gear.’
Although Sybil looked and sounded as vague as ever, she launched into her explanation immediately. While working on another case, in Brownsville, she had met Fernelley—or Barnstaple as he had called himself. Realizing that he was a smart criminal, she had cultivated him. Winning his confidence, she had learned his true identity and had convinced him that she would be a willing partner in his schemes.
From what Sybil had been able to gather, Fernelley’s raid into Mexico had been his last fling at active robbery before launching his grand scheme to supply other outlaws with information.
Cornered by a posse of the dreaded, man-killing Guardia Rurales, after the robbery had gone wrong, Fernelley had taken a desperate risk to escape. He could not swim, but had seen a fallen tree being washed down the river. As he had leapt over the edge of the gorge, he had been wounded. However, he had managed to grab hold of the tree and hang on. Even then, he had come close to being drowned. By some miracle, he had survived and, carried about five miles downstream, was pulled from the water by a Mexican peon.
Over a year had gone by before Fernelley had been well enough to travel. On his return to Texas, he had found his hide-out deserted. His wife and all the counterfeiting gear had disappeared. It had been during his search for her that he had met Sybil. Realizing the full potential of the scheme he had had in mind, she had set about circumventing it. To do so, she had been compelled to accompany him and play the part of his willing accomplice.
Making for the south-western counties of Texas, which had been his wife’s stamping grounds before they were married and to which he had believed that she would have returned, Fernelly had consistently failed to pick up any clue as to her whereabouts. Then they had heard of Widow Snodgrass’s activities and his suspicions had been aroused.
All through the search, Sybil had been worried that she might become a party to a crime. As they had approached Rocksprings, looking for the widow, her fears had threatened to become fact. Having run short of money, Fernelley had announced his intention of swindling the banker in that town. That had placed the girl on the horns of a dilemma. While she had no wish to ruin all her efforts by betraying Fernelley prematurely, she also had had no desire to allow the banker—a member of the Association for whom she worked—to be cheated.
Luck had favored the fair.
Leaving Sybil at the deserted cabin to which she had later taken Brady and Jeff, Fernelley had gone into town alone, posing as an officer of the Texas Bankers’ Protective Association. Following him, in the hope that she might find a solution to her difficulties, she had seen and recognized the Merton gang. Guessing what they had had in mind, she kept them under surveillance. From their behavior, which was far different from their usual haphazard methods, she had concluded that they might be using Fernelley’s system of robbing the bank.
There had been two advantages to watching the gang and scaring them off after the hold-up, instead of causing their arrest while it was taking place. Firstly, the incident would divert Fernelley’s attention from swindling the banker. Secondly, the pursuit might produce proof of their connection with the counterfeiting side of the operation. Having gained the banker’s confidence, using a set of forged credentials, Fernelley would be able to exert pressure upon the local peace officers and, in the interests of gathering information, would do his best to ensure the gang’s capture. He would also have to forgo his notions of swindling Cuthbertson.
Brady’s and Jeff’s abilities had made a profound impression on Fernelley during the pursuit of the gang. Rejoining the girl, he had said that they formed a serious threat to his future plans. He had not wished to be involved if they had been murdered by the banker, so he had saved their lives. Once they were released from the jail, which might not have been long after they had seen the local justice of the peace—who was no friend of the banker—they would set out to recover their money. Fernelley had been afraid that they would succeed and also might learn what had been behind Merton’s actions.
With that in mind, Fernelley had organized their escape from jail. To lessen their suspicions, he had given them sufficient information to send them in the right direction. After Brady and Jeff had left them, he had told Sybil how he had fixed things to arouse Cuthbertson’s suspicions about himself. He had deserted the room which he had booked at the hotel and had left a report, that he had compelled the banker to write to the Texas Bankers’ Association, as if it had been crumpled up contemptuously and thrown into a corner.
On Cuthbertson telegraphing the Association and discovering that Vice-President Barnstaple had not been near Rocksprings, he had sent out the wanted notices. That had made Brady and Jeff targets for peace officers and bounty hunters. By changing his clothes, Fernelley had been satisfied that he would not be recognized as the third man named and described by the sheriff of Edwards County.
Sybil and Fernelley had followed the Texans to Sanderson. Again the girl had been told to wait outside the town. When Fernelly had come back, he had told her that the remaining members of Merton’s gang were dead. He had killed the last of them rather than have Ostringer fall into the hands of the law and be induced to talk.
Having been directed by Fernelley to go to Mona Gilhooley’s Tavern, which he had claimed ought to prove a fruitful location for information, Sybil could not offer to explain why he had sent the bounty hunters after Brady and Jeff. However, Brady had assumed that Fernelley had realized that Marshal Staines was satisfied with their innocence and would not be holding them in custody. So he had taken advantage of the chance meeting and had set the men after them in the hope that they would be killed.
Sybil had not waited for Fernelley to rendezvous with her at the Tavern. Learning about One-Eyed Sam’s message, she had set off alone to solve the mystery of the words, Two Miles to the Border’. Making faster time than Brady and Jeff, as she had not been accompanying a wagon for any of the journey, she had beaten them to the Mission. Convincing the Ludlaws that she was, if not what she pretended to be, at least a useful recruit for the Daughters of the Lord, she had been permitted to await Widow Snodgrass’s arrival.
Brady and Jeff knew the rest of the story.
‘I’m sorry that Widow Snodgrass was killed,’ Sybil remarked, looking at Jeff who had joined them after setting Hoydan to work. ‘I liked her and she was a remarkable woman.’
‘She was all of that,’ Brady agreed. ‘Where do we deliver the plates when we find them?’
‘Sanderson would be a good starting place,’ the girl replied. ‘While we’re there, I’ll clear your names and arrange with the Association for the return of your ranch; or at least a good share of the profits.’
‘That’s real good of you,’ Jeff enthused.
‘There’ll be a reward, too, Sir Walter,’ Sybil pointed out. ‘I don’t know how much it will be, but we ought to get at least what Fernelley offered you.’
‘Fifty thousand dollars?’ Jeff breathed.
‘I can’t promise you anything, of course,’ the girl warned. ‘But the plates ought to be worth at least that much. What do you intend to do with all the money?’
‘Live in a manner to which we’ve always been too poor to become accustomed,’ Brady replied. ‘And this time I hope that we make it.’
‘So do I,’ Sybil declared, looking at Jeff with interest and something more on her elfin features. ‘And I’m almost tempted to help you do it.’