CHAPTER XXXVII.

The two men looked at each other in silence, that silence which is more terrible than any sound can be, even the cry of anguish.

Varley’s face was livid, and big drops of sweat stood upon his forehead.

“Gone!” said Norman at last, and in a whisper. “What do you mean?”

“She has gone!” said Varley. “They have kidnapped her!”

“Do you mean to say that they have taken Esmeralda away?” said Norman, in utter amazement.

Varley assented with a gesture and a groan.

“Why did you leave her unprotected?” asked Norman.

But he was sorry, a moment afterward, that he had allowed the question to escape him, for Varley looked as if he had been struck.

“She was not alone,” he said. “Mother Melinda was with her. They can both use a revolver as well as you or I. Esmeralda is a dead shot.” He glanced at the weapons on the wall of the hut. “She must have been lured outside, and they must have taken her suddenly by some trick, and before she could utter a cry; for, if she had shouted, some one would have heard her.”

“Why should they take her—Esmeralda?” asked Norman, still in the same awe-struck whisper.

Varley’s head drooped.

“Because it’s the deadliest blow Dog’s Ear could strike at us all,” he said. “We prevented them robbing the coach the other day, and this is their revenge.”

“The curs!” ground out Norman.

Varley started suddenly, as if awakening from the paralysis of anguish.

“What are we standing here for?” he said, almost fiercely. “Give me your horse. Follow me down to the camp!”

He sprung into the saddle and rode down to the camp, Norman following him as fast as he could run. The men were coming out of the saloon, and Varley rode into their midst, pulling up his horse on its haunches. He had regained[295] something of his presence of mind by this time, and his voice was almost as clear and cool as usual as he said:

“Boys, I’ve bad news. They’ve taken Esmeralda.”

After a moment, they grasped his meaning. There was no need to ask who had taken her; they all understood. A roar like the growl of an infuriated wild beast rose, and every man’s hand went to his weapon, while they thronged round Varley, instinctively waiting for his word of command. He drew his head up with the air of the born leader, and kept them cool by his own coolness.

“Let every man mount and meet me on the road,” he said. “Let there be no noise, no shouting.”

“Ay, ay!” came the instant response. They rushed off. Taffy brought Varley’s horse, and Norman sprung on to his own.

“What do you mean to do?” he asked.

“Bring her back, if I have to kill every man in Dog’s Ear!” said Varley between his clinched teeth.

In a few minutes they heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs, but not a word, so implicitly was Varley obeyed. He and Norman rode toward the road. Neither of them at that moment thought of Norman’s mission, or, indeed, cared anything about it. Esmeralda was in danger, and everything else was of secondary importance.

By the time they had reached the bend of the road they found the men awaiting them. They looked a formidable band, and their silence was more ominous than any shouting or fierce oaths could have been. Some of the men’s faces were as white as Varley’s own, and there was a look on Taffy’s so full of blood-thirstiness that for a moment or two Norman could not take his eyes from him.

“Boys,” said Varley in a low voice, “we shall go to Dog’s Ear and demand Esmeralda. Let no man speak but me; let no man fire a shot or strike a blow unless I give the word.”

The men gave a hoarse assent, and the band went forward, Varley and Norman leading the way.

“They will not harm her?” said Norman, almost inaudibly.

“They dare not,” said Varley, hoarsely—“they dare not!”

“You mean that they will hold her to ransom?” asked Norman, feverishly.

Varley nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “or they would have killed her at the hut.”

Norman drew a long breath of relief. They rode on in silence, the dull thud of the horses’ hoofs breaking the deep[296] silence of the night. As they approached Dog’s Ear they heard the baying of dogs, then saw lights moving to and fro. It was evident that the camp had been made aware of their approach.

Dog’s Ear lay in a little hollow, and as Varley and Norman rode down the winding pathway, almost at full gallop, they heard men shouting, and presently saw forms looming in the semi-darkness. They rode straight into the camp, and were instantly surrounded by a crowd of men and women, the former with their revolvers in their hands.

One man, a burly fellow as large as Taffy, and evidently one of the leaders, pushed forward and looked up at Varley with a scowl of surprise and resentment.

“What’s this ’ere,” he growled—“a picnic?”

A hoarse kind of roar, low and threatening, arose from the Three Star men. Varley held up his hand to command silence.

“You can call it a picnic if you like,” he said, and his voice was almost as soft and languid as when he was calling the game. “You know what we have come for.”

The man glared at him.

“You’re wrong!” he said, with an oath.

“That’s a lie!” said Varley. “My daughter has been stolen from our camp. She is here!”

The man began a grin, but it died away at a look that suddenly came into Varley’s face.

“Oh, the gal’s been stolen?” said the man. “Well, that’s no business of ours. You ought to be able to take care of your own gals.”

Varley’s revolver—and not only Varley’s—covered him. He drew back slightly.

“We know nothing about it,” he said, sullenly. “We didn’t take her, and she ain’t here. We’ve plenty of gals of our own; in fact, too many, and you’re welcome to some of ’em as I could name.”

Varley turned his head over his shoulder.

“Search the camp, boys,” he said, briefly.

The Dog’s Ear men were not all cowards, and they snarled and showed their teeth, and the big man was unwise enough to seize Varley’s bridle. The next instant his arm fell useless to his side; Varley had struck it with the butt end of his revolver.

“See here,” he said, “there’s no need for fighting unless you’re spoiling for it. We mean to search the camp, every inch of it; we’ll do it quietly, if you like, but we shall do it.[297] The first man who hinders us will pay the penalty. You know me!”

The big man cursed him fluently and with an astonishing wealth of detail; but none of his men ventured to raise a weapon, for the Three Star men had gradually surrounded him and pressed them into a little group. Varley addressed a dozen men by name.

“Keep guard,” he said, “and if any man offers to move, shoot him; otherwise don’t fire a shot.” Then he and Norman dismounted, and, followed by Taffy and several others, commenced their search. With candles and torches of pine wood in their hands they went the round from tent to tent, hut to hut; every tool-shed, every inch of cover was closely examined. As they proceeded, Varley’s heart grew heavier. Esmeralda was not there.

“What is to be done?” asked Norman.

Varley wiped the sweat from his brow and looked straight before him without answering. At that moment, the vivid imaginations of both men were busy picturing the girl they loved so dearly helpless in the hands of an implacable and unscrupulous foe. Varley went back to the crowd of prisoners and confronted the big man, whose arm was now bandaged to his side.

“She is not here,” he said, sternly.

The man swore.

“I told you so,” he said. “You call yourself a clever man, Mr. Varley Howard; I call yer a fool to think that we should bring the gal here where yer could foller her. I tell ye we know nothin’ about ’er. Most like she’s gone back to England, where she come from.”

Varley retained his calm by a supreme effort. His eye wandered over the sullen group.

“There is one of you I miss,” he said. “Where is Simon?”

“He ain’t here,” said the man; then he leered malignantly. “Ah, Simon!” he said, “now yer mention it, I shouldn’t be surprised if he had ’ad a hand in this game.”

The Three Star men emitted a growl, and one or two fingered their revolvers longingly.

“Shouldn’t be at all surprised,” continued the man, with a sardonic satisfaction and stroking his wounded arm. “Yer see, you spoilt his game with the coach the other night, and this may be his way of payin’ you off. Yes, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Simon’s got the gal; and if so you’ll have to[298] pay pretty dear to git her back. Simon ain’t a man to be trifled with, is he, boys?”

The Dog’s Ear men grinned discreetly, and with sidelong glances at the shining revolvers of their captors.

“Where is he?” demanded Varley; and the man shrugged his uninjured shoulder and spat on the ground with exaggerated indifference.

“Can’t say, guv’nor,” he said; “I’m not Simon’s nuss. He left this ’ere camp jest after the coach bus’ness, and when the police came poking their noses. We ain’t answerable for Simon and his goings-on, and if yer want ’im yer’d better go and find ’im. An’ if yer arst me, I think you Three Star chaps are playin’ it pretty low down on a neighborin’ camp. Dog’s Ear ain’t ’ad much reason for regardin’ Three Star with brotherly love up ter now, an’ this ’ere foolishness is a-goin’ to be chalked up agin you.”

The threat broke down Taffy’s self-restraint.

“Let him or any one of ’em come out ’ere, the best man among ’em, and let me have it out with him, Varley!” he implored, pressing forward; but Varley put him back with a hand upon his breast.

“No,” he said. “I’ve given my word. The camp has been searched. Esmeralda is not here. Back to Three Star, boys.”

The men got on their horses and rode away; but they looked back at the sullen crowd they had left behind, reluctantly, and muttered amongst themselves. They returned to the Eldorado in a fever of fury and anxiety which no amount of MacGrath’s “infamous” could assuage.

Varley waited until they had drunk, and then stopped in his pacing up and down outside and issued a fresh order.

“Break up into threes,” he said, “and search the hill. It will be light presently, and you’ll be able to see any tracks. Let there be no violence if it puts Esmeralda in danger. The man who has kidnapped her is Simon, and he may want money. If so—”

A shout interrupted him.

“All we’ve got, Varley!” exclaimed Taffy, hoarsely.

“That’s so,” said Varley. Then, as the men divided themselves and sprung into their saddles, he beckoned to Norman and rode up the hill toward the hut. “They may have left some trace behind them,” he said, as the horses cantered up the hill. “I made so sure of finding her in that accursed camp!”

When they reached the hut they found Mother Melinda[299] sobbing and wringing her hands. Varley comforted her as well as he could.

“All right; it’s no fault of yours,” he said in response to her reiterated and wailing assertions that she had only left the hut for a few minutes, and that Esmeralda had always been able to take care of herself.

“You’ll get her back for me, Varley?” she cried, with clasped hands and tears streaming from her eyes. “It was bad enough when she went to England, but this is wuss!” Then suddenly, as she saw Varley’s face, her tone changed, woman-like: “Don’t take on about it so, Varley; don’t give up hope. Yer heart’s breakin’, I can see.”

Varley smiled.

“It’s broken!” he said, simply.

While he had been talking he had been examining the room for some traces of the kidnappers, and now he went outside with the lantern and examined the ground beyond the threshold.

Norman had been hunting round also, and suddenly he uttered a cry and held something white aloft.

Varley ran up to him where he stood, about a hundred yards from the hut.

“I’ve found this!” said Norman, eagerly. “It’s a sheet of paper with a piece of stick stuck through it.”

The two men held the candle above the paper and read it together. It was a badly spelled scrawl, written on the back of an old play-bill, and ran thus:

“We’ve got the gal. You can hev her by payin’ two hundred pounds, which we should hev got out of the coach. Let one man bring the muny ter the old hut in the Raven Claim on fridy evenin’, an’ the gal shall be given up. We wait til then, an’ no longer.”

There was no signature.

The two men’s hands trembled as they held the paper.

“Thank God!” said Norman.

Varley drew a long breath.

“To-day is— What is it?”

He passed his hand across his brow.

“Thursday,” said Norman. “It is not many hours to wait. I suppose we must wait?”

Varley bowed his head.

“Yes!” he said through his clinched teeth. “She is in their hands, and we are powerless. Any attempt on our part to recapture her might lead to—”

[300]

Norman shuddered.

“If we’d only found this thing before. Some of the search-parties may discover them and bring about a catastrophe.”

Varley nodded.

“Come with me,” he said.

They climbed the hill behind the hut, Varley gathering some pine branches as he went along. When they had gained the summit, he piled the branches in a heap and set fire to them.

“What are you doing?” asked Norman.

“Calling the men back,” he said. “Fire your revolver.”

Both men fired as the flames shot up in the darkness. Presently they heard a muffled shout; it was followed by several others from various directions, and a little later they could hear the men galloping toward the signal-fire, and were presently surrounded by the excited search-parties.

“Esmeralda! Have you found her? Is she here?” came the sharp questions, as the men flung themselves from their horses.

“No; but we have heard of her,” said Varley, standing beside the fire, and he read Simon’s note. The men stood silent for a minute in that intense reaction from a terrible suspense.

“Two ’undred pounds,” said Taffy. “The darned fool; he should ’ave said two thousand!”

Varley looked round.

“Is there two hundred in the camp?” he asked, quietly.

The men exchanged glances and their faces fell. It was all very well to value their Esmeralda at two thousand or two million, but it suddenly broke in upon them that they might not have even the paltry two hundred.

Norman stepped forward to offer the money; then he remembered that his worldly wealth consisted of about ten pounds, and his face fell; but he took out his leather purse from its hiding-place and put it into Varley’s hand. The other men followed suit with an almost fierce eagerness. Varley knelt beside the fire and counted the contributions; there was about forty pounds.

“You can make up the rest, eh, Varley?” said Taffy. “We sent ours by the bank agent yesterday; you wasn’t in the saloon when he came, and you’ve got enough at the hut, haven’t you?”

Varley looked up with a white face.

“I met him at the bend and gave him every penny I had, excepting what you won last night.”

[301]

The men uttered not a word, but looked at each other and then at Varley. He rose and looked at his watch.

“To-morrow night!” he said, grimly. “I must ride to Wally-Wally.”

Taffy swore.

“You can’t do it in the time,” he said.

Varley smiled faintly.

“We shall see,” he said. “Lead the mare down, Taffy, give her a rub over and a feed of oats, plain.” Then, without another word, he walked down to the hut.

Norman almost forced him to eat and drink.

“You will never do it!” he said.

Varley smiled again. Taffy brought up the mare presently, and Varley mounted, surrounded by the whole camp. He looked round, with a touch of his old insouciance breaking through the stern determination written in every line of his face, flashing in the dark, somber eyes.

“Don’t be afraid, boys,” he said. “We shall do it.” The next instant, amidst a ringing cheer, the mare had sprung toward the road.