The men of Mount Solomon took the story which Ronicky Doone had told them as a joke. Had they detected anything overcunning in the narrative which he presented for their inspection, they might have resented the attempt to pull the wool over their eyes. But the truth, exactly as he told it, seemed so entirely absurd that they laughed heartily, and still more heartily whenever they thought of it.
And afterward, when they found that he was quite willing to be laughed at, and even would smile with them, they liked him for it and accepted him as a whole-hearted good fellow. For he had proved both courage and fighting skill in downing Christopher, and this adventure onto Mount Solomon was only an excess of foolhardiness.
They even began to banter him about his good intentions in riding to Mount Solomon and posing as a recruit for the band, all for the sake of leading some half dozen fighters down to mask the batteries of terrible Al Jenkins.
"Maybe," they suggested, "you're kind of fond of Charlie and hate to see his work wasted on the Bennett place."
"That's just it," said Ronicky. And they roared with laughter at the thought of it. "And why," they asked, "are you so thick with Charlie?"
"He saved my hoss," said Ronicky. This brought fresh laughter. Everything he said seemed to amuse them. They threw back their heads and shouted with pleasure at the thought of a man venturing his neck to repay the saving of a horse. For horses in their minds were simply the tough, ugly little cow ponies of the Western mountains.
Ronicky cut their laughter short. With a low whistle he brought a short neigh of response, and then out of the entrance passage flashed the bay mare and came straight to him, dancing eagerly and tossing her head at the strangers. Her beauty brought a volley of admiration and curses from the outlaws. To them such speed as her shapely body and strong legs represented, might mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment, or life and death. And then a wave of Ronicky's hand sent her back to her original hiding place.
There was no need of words. The sight of the mare had been enough to convince them of the importance of the action whereby Christopher had drawn her from the very grip of death. And they looked at Ronicky with a renewed respect and interest.
But they went back in their banter to another subject: the pretense of Ronicky that he would attempt to persuade them to go down and ride herd for Steve Bennett.
"How would you go about persuading a gent to leave off a free life and the ability to do what he wants, in order to go down there and be the slave of another man?" they asked.
"You sure got a lot of fine freedom up here," he said. "Living in a hole like rats and sitting on stones— that's a fine freedom, gents. But I'd rather be a slave and live easy, while I'm living. We're a long time dead."
This pointed remark brought something of a growl from them.
"You'd have us leave off and work on cows, eh? Twelve hours a day running the doggies?"
"How many hours do you work at your jobs that you got now?" he asked them.
"Only when we feel like it!" They answered him in a chorus. Evidently this was one point which they relished most.
"Sure," said Ronicky, "you only work when you feel like it, but it seems to me that you must feel like it all the time. There's old Cook. He just come in from a hard trail, and he had to go right out again. He didn't have time to do much more'n say hello. But didn't he want to stay here? Sure he did, only he was due a long ways off, and if he misses connections at the other end of that ride he'll have to turn around and come clear back, living on hope most of the way, going and coming. I sure don't cotton to that sort of a life, boys, because, take me by and large, you'll find me a lazy cuss! I like the ease of punching cows."
They regarded him almost agape. Such reasoning was beyond them, although the bitter truth of the last remark he had made was bearing in on the mind of every one of them. They, all of them, had ridden their trails which had no ending, and they had turned back from a lost goal, hungry and weary and hopeless.
"Besides, the odds are too big," said Ronicky, continuing a monologue which was addressed to himself as much as to them— for he seemed to be merely thinking aloud. "You boys against the rest of the world. Nobody can beat that game forever."
In protest they shrugged their shoulders.
"Freedom," said Ronicky, "you ain't got. And a chance for a lazy life you sure ain't got. What else is on your side of the fence, boys?"
"Money," said the red-shirted man hotly. "We got some coin to spend, now and then. That's more'n the cow-punchers have!"
"Well," said Ronicky, "how much are you ahead of the game?"
"I've been rich, pretty near," said the other reminiscently. He rocked back on the big stone on which he was sitting and, clasping his knee in his hands, gazed intently into his past. "There was a month right after a little job that me and Turk Ralston done in Nevada, when we was rolling in loot. Yep, we sure had lots of the kale. I had close to twenty-five thousand on me then!"
There was a little murmur that passed around the circle. All eyes turned upon Ronicky. Certainly he was answered this time. Ronicky himself took off his hat and waved it to the other.
"If you got twenty-five thousand," he said, "you sure have a lot more'n I'll ever get out of cow-punching."
"Oh, I didn't mean that I have it now," said the other. And he shivered a little as he spoke. The joy went out of his face, and a wintry darkness took its place. "Nope, right after that, Ralston, the dog, double-crossed me and turned me over to the sheriff. And the sheriff got the loot and me with it. I got five years for that!"
"All right," said Ronicky. "That sort of changes things. I was envying you a lot a while back, but I feel a little different right now. You have twenty-five thousand to look at for a month, and then you paid for it by busting rocks for five years for nothing. Is that right?"
He of the red shirt moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and cast an ugly look at Ronicky. He did not like to have the glory of that twenty-five-thousand-dollar haul besmirched so rudely.
"It's more'n you'll ever put your finger on, son," he said sharply.
"Sure it is," said Ronicky, "because I can't figure on paying a price as high as that for money. Not for one month's worth of money! You see, I like my freedom too well!"
There was a moment of silence, while the outlaws reflected darkly upon these remarks. It seemed that they were being backed up against the wall, and yet they felt that there must be some escape.
"Now, there's Bud, yonder," said he of the red shirt at last. "He ain't ever spent a day in jail in his life. There's freedom for you!"
At once the case of Bud was taken up with acclaim.
"Yep, let's have any of the cow-punchers, beginning with yourself, stand up and say that they've led as free a life as Bud has led!"
Ronicky looked closely at Bud. He was a very tall, very thin man. Eternal melancholy sat upon his eyes. His cheek were drawn famine-thin. And there was a faint and uncertain spot of color in each cheek, although the rest of his face was deathly white. Even as Ronicky looked at him, Bud coughed, a racking cough that tore his frame.
"All right," said Ronicky with deadly solemnity. "I guess Bud may have lived a free life. But there's other ways of paying for freedom than in a prison. I wish Bud all the freedom he can get and the best time!"
Plainly he had guessed the grim secret of Bud and a heavy silence fell on the circle.
"In the whole bunch of you," asked Ronicky suddenly, "is there just one that's got a thousand dollars?"
The silence was an eloquent answer in the negative.
"Among the whole bunch of you," demanded Ronicky, "is there a one that ain't paid for his times when he was flush, by months of prison and hard riding in all kinds of weather, and being hounded here and there through the mountains, till you had to keep your eyes peeled on every bush that you passed? Is there a one of you that doesn't have to look extra hard when a new man comes into the room, because that new gent may be somebody that you fell foul of?"
He paused abruptly from the tirade and found that one and all were watching him, with haunted eyes of dread. It seemed that he was speaking for each man in words which revealed his own peril most intimately.
Finally he of the red shirt, but in a harsh, choked voice, said: "Well, Ronicky, I dunno where you aim to drive with all this chatter. You sure don't expect that we'd go down onto Bennett's Ranch and really ride herd for you."
"Why not?" asked Ronicky sharply.
"Why— thunder! Us? They'd have us hung inside of ten days at the most!"
"Why would they? You boys ain't been operating around here. Nine chance out of ten they won't be a soul around that'll know you at all."
"Why not try it for a week— or for a day?" asked Ronicky. "There's nobody to make you do anything longer than you want to."
The novelty of the idea began to appeal to them suddenly.
"Why, boys," said the tall man, Bud, raising his great length and looking hungrily at Ronicky, "if I could get to a real, honest-Injun bed for one night, I figure that it might do me some good, eh?"
"It'd be sort of fun to sing to the doggies, too," said another reflectively.
"And as he says, we don't have to stay."
"But what about keeping him here for a hostage until Christopher is in the clear?"
"Tell that idea to your hat. He ain't going to blow on Kit. He's got too much sense. He knows that if he starts anything like that he'll have the whole mob of us after him, and he sure ain't lining out any sort of a future like that for himself!"
Ronicky Doone said not a word. He was looking down at his watch. It was still only a little after noon, and there was time if they acted at once!
