Erle Stanley Gardner

Bare Hands

Chapter I

On Guard

The country was rolling. Between the long hills draws stretched back to the purple mountains. In the early morning the wind blew gently down these draws, and the breeze was tainted with carrion. For this was Mexico, and, in Mexico, it frequently happens that the cool morning breeze carries the taint of carrion, particularly when it sweeps gently down sloping draws.

At the mine three men gazed over the landscape with anxious eyes. They were too accustomed to the carrion smell to notice it or comment upon it.

“We should get help to-day.”

Vincent Shaffer, immaculate, clean-shaven, spoke with nervous rapidity.

Robert Standish was older by thirty years. His eyes had bleached into expressionless calm. He gave the impression of one whose soul had soaked up emotions until, like a piece of old blotting paper, it had no more power to absorb.

“The relief,” he said, “would probably be as bad for us as the other.”

Dan Harder said nothing. He drew in his breath as though he might speak, but exhaled again, his great fingers twisting in inarticulate reticence.

He was a figure to command attention anywhere. His shoulders were so broad that they dwarfed his great height. His waist was slender, but the chest seemed almost deformed, so deep was it. But the striking feature of the man was his hands.

From the elbows down his body departed from normal. His forearm was as thick as an ordinary leg. His wrists were great masses of bone, and his hands were veritable hams. Just as a police dog puppy seems to run to paws, so did Dan Harder seem to run to hands.

Vincent Shaffer pointed.

“Look, look, dust!” he exclaimed, and there was a note in his voice that was almost hysteria.

Then it was Dan Harder spoke:

“Little cloud, one or two horses on the trail. Keep yore shirt on.”

Robert Standish stepped back into the cool shadows of the ’dobe house. When he returned he had a pair of powerful binoculars. He raised them to his eyes and studied the trail.

“One man, traveling fast.”

He lowered the glasses and swept his eyes over the sun-flooded flat. The deserted mining buildings glared in the sun until the eyes ached from contemplation of their dazzling outlines. The miners had left in a body.

The reputation of the Wolf was such that the populace fled before him. Even the Federal troops who were ostensibly trying to capture the bandit, managed to keep far enough in the rear so no sudden change of front would find them in actual conflict with the bandit’s gang.

The horseman swung down the steep side of the hill, hit the more level going of the canon, spurred his mount to top speed, then laboriously climbed the sharp pitch to the flat where the mining buildings writhed in the sun.

“Señores, good morning,” he greeted, in the language of his race.

“And to you,” gravely returned Standish, his expressionless eyes sweeping over the horseman in indifferent curiosity.

The man had ridden far and fast. His horse was tired. Despite the cool of early morning, the animal was caked with sweat and dust. The rider sat wearily in the saddle. A rifle was in his hands rather than in the saddle scabbard. The cartridge belt was almost empty. A pistol hung from a holster, worn black with much use.

The rider indicated the purple mountains.

“The pass is far?”

“About eighteen kilometers,” advised Shaffer.

The rider sighed.

“Is there perhaps a little food for a weary man?”

Standish bowed with grave courtesy.

“Our men have left. We are doing our own cooking. But if the señor will enter we will make some coffee, and there is food in tins.”

At the suggestion of dismounting, the man straightened in the saddle.

“No, no. You misunderstand. I have no time. I sit here too long now, waiting for my horse to get his breath. Coffee, no. I have no time. Señores, I beg of you, give me a can of the frijoles. I will eat from the can as I ride.”

As he spoke the words became more rapid. His reddened eyes swept back along the trail he had followed.

“He comes!” he exclaimed.

The men followed his gaze.

It could not be said that a cloud of dust was arising from the trail. Rather the entire horizon seemed to gather a dusty haze about itself. The body of riders was yet too far away to show a distinct dust cloud. It was as a faint fog, miles distant.

Vincent Shaffer ran to the ’dobe. From a locked box he extracted cartons of shells, piled them in glittering brass heaps upon a spring cot. His nervous hands buckled a revolver about his belt. For the tenth time that morning he looked at the rifle which stood against his bed, snapped open the lock to make sure a shell was in the firing chamber, tested the magazine.

Robert Standish brought out the can of beans.

The rider accepted it with thanks, looked at the pile of glittering shells.

“He is a devil, señores. Could you spare me a few of the shells? You have plenty. I have but few. East night I was surrounded, but I fought my way out.”

Vincent Shaffer heard the words.

“No, no, we have none too many.”

The rider smiled gravely.

“Señor, you have more than enough. If you have to fire one, you will be fortunate if you have the chance to fire two. The Wolf moves fast when he makes his kill. You gringos are brave. You are more than brave, you are foolish. Come, flee with me. With the four of us, with the ammunition you have, we can hold off any attack from the rear. We will ride through the pass and be safe.

“I have come far. I have seen the bodies of many men, and some of them had white skin. Come, amigos, is it not better that we ride?”

Standish shook his head doggedly.

“Then he would find the mine deserted and take a good title. We protect the property of our employers.”

The rider shook his head slowly.

“It is wonderful! No wonder that you of the north have much money. Always are you willing to lay down your lives lest your precious property should be taken. Is there, then some special heaven for the gringo which gives him standing according to the property which surrounds his corpse?”

Standish flashed the man a swift look. His words bordered on insolence, and yet, at a time like this, a certain amount of leeway was given.

“Give him some shells, Vincent, and let him be off,” he said crisply.

Shaffer’s reluctant hands furnished a few shells to the rider.

The man accepted them with a grin in which there was more insolence than thanks. He stuffed them in his belt, clapped spurs to his horse and clattered on up the canon.

The men followed him with their eyes for a moment, then looked back down the canon.

The cloud of dust had become whiter, had assumed outline. In a few moments it would top the crest of the rolling ridge. They watched it in fascination.

It was Dan Harder’s slow voice that cut in on their thoughts.

“The rider didn’t go up the trail,” he said.

“Huh?”

Standish snapped out the word impatiently.

Harder pointed one of his thick fingers.

The trail dipped down into the canon, crossed a dry stream-bed, and then ran through some brush. Half a mile farther it once more climbed from the wash and it was to this part of the trail, clearly visible, that Harder pointed.

Had the man remained on the trail, the dark blotch of horse and rider would have showed on the trail where it swung round the face of the slope. But the hill glinted in the sunlight, silent, deserted, not even a wisp of dust showing where anything had been along the trail.

And down the canon, on the soft breeze of the morning came the unmistakable taint of carrion, stronger, it seemed, than before.

Vincent Shaffer shuddered.

Dan Harder shrugged his huge shoulders.

“He circled around through that little saddle. He’ll either hide or ride back an’ join the Wolf.”

Robert Standish stroked the thin, pointed beard which gave his face an atmosphere of dignified distinction.

“Probably a spy, sent on to find out how many of us there were. You notice he tried to stampede us into flight. The Wolf would very much like to come on this mine abandoned and have some of his men relocate it.”

“Here they come!” yelled Shaffer, his white forefinger pointing to the crest of the hill.

The riders boiled over it in a black column that came without formation. At times it swelled until ten or fifteen horses were abreast, spreading out on each side of the trail. At times the stream narrowed until only one horseman followed the beaten center of the dusty trail. Then the stream swelled again.

A motley array of mounted men, they poured over the lip of the hill, spread out like a black river as they worked down the slope. And, behind them, a dust cloud billowed upward to the blue-black of the Mexican sky, drifting slightly on the carrion tainted breeze.

“Well, boys, we’re in for it,” said Robert Standish in emotionless tones. “Better get our pistols ready. And we’ll stay inside the ’dobe. That’ll protect us from stray bullets. They won’t start a general attack unless the Wolf orders it.

“That rider was right. If he does order it, we probably won’t even have a chance to reload. Let me do most of the talking.”

As calmly as though he were getting ready to write a letter, he entered the ’dobe, buckled on a revolver, sat at the battered desk and lit a cigarette.

Dan Harder sat on the edge of one of the cots, his great fingers flexing slightly.

Vincent Shaffer stealthily slipped a handful of glittering brass cylinders into his pocket, rattled the rest into a fan-shaped formation so that hurried fingers could snatch them up. Then he evidently felt that this looked like too much of an invitation to hostilities and swept the shells once more into a pile, covered them with a blanket.

Dan Harder watched him with eyes that glowed with sardonic humor. But his lips remained closed. He had made no move to buckle on the revolver which hung from the frame of the cot.

He had not known Shaffer until he came to the mine. Yet it was a strange whim of Fate that one woman had sent them both into this exile.

Rita Standish was one of those women who are born to make discord. Men saw her and desired. And her laughing eyes surveyed them impersonally, as playthings which had been sent to dance attendance upon her and amuse her.

Vincent Shaffer had been the first of the two. He had sought to impress her with his air of polish, that courtly reserve which had won women before. But when he had been hard hit he lost his mask and begged for her hand in marriage, as eager as a child.

Her laughing eyes surveyed him.

“You have not been hardened to the world. You are a mere boy,” she had told him. “Now father is in Mexico. Perhaps he would have room for you on his mine. Then, after six months — who knows?”

And so Vincent Shaffer had entered the Mexican wilderness, cursing it in his heart, afraid of it. And he wondered whether she had merely devised this method of securing assistance for her father and getting rid of a too pressing suitor, or whether she had been really sincere. The thought tortured him, even as the heat and the coarse fare tortured him.

Dan Harder had been the second. Her laughing eyes had looked at his huge hands.

“You are out of place in a parlor,” she had said. “Now my father has a mine in Mexico. I believe he might find a place—”

Harder had made one of his typical remarks, a remark that was far from the subject.

“The time will come,” he had said, “when your eyes will quit laughing at existence.”

But he had gone to the mine.

Each suspected why the other was there. Vincent Shaffer hated Dan Harder, as he did the country. Dan Harder always regarded Shaffer with quizzical amusement as though wondering what Rita Standish could have seen in such a man.

Robert Standish regarded them impartially through eyes which had been bleached into expressionless courtesy and treated them alike.

Chapter II

In the Hands of “The Wolf?”

From without the ’dobe there sounded the tramp of hoofs as horses broke from a rapid trot into a ragged walk, came to a stop before the doorway.

Robert Standish arose from the desk, went to the door and threw it open. Vincent Shaffer reached toward the rifle with moist hands, then thought better of the action and drew away. Dan Harder remained on the edge of the cot, his knee gripped between his huge hands.

They were a ragged lot, the men without. Saddles are worth more in Mexico than the horses that carry them — at times. These men had sacks, bits of rawhide, scraps of leather, anything that might serve the purpose for saddles. For shoes they had sandals, and their browned feet showed skin that had been cracked and toughened until it resembled leather itself.

The men looked upon those within the ’dobe with eyes that were avaricious. They spoke no word, and that was a bad sign.

Robert Standish knew the country and the ways of the people. Perhaps he was the only one of the three white men who could form an accurate estimate of the danger. But Robert Standish had lived a life. Death would find him indifferent.

“Where is your leader?” he asked.

There was no reply from the horsemen. They looked about them with loot-hungry eyes.

Standish raised his voice.

And then there was a commotion in the rear. A short, broad-shouldered man spurred his horse forward. Here was a saddle that was inlaid with silver. Here were shoes that had cost more than a hundred sandals.

But the face was the same. It was a heavy face, given but little to expression and never to thought. The eyes were loot-hungry, but they looked not at the clothes of the Americans. They flickered over the ore dump, the machinery of the mine.

Shortly behind him came a different type of man.

If the leader was named for the wolf, the man behind should have been named for the fox. His face was thin, mobile with expression, but the expression of cunning dominated all the other expressions. His eyes were large, lustrous, his hands slender, the fingers tapering. The mouth was thin. On occasions it could be cruel.

“Señores, it is a pleasure! We heard that the mine had been abandoned. In these troublous times it is hard to police our entire territory. Please be assured that we shall protect property and lives. It is the rival aspirant for the government that makes the territory unsafe.”

Standish stood to one side of the doorway and bowed deeply. It was noticeable that he did not step outside of the protection of the thick walls.

“Will you honor us by entering? I regret that we cannot offer you hospitality. Our help have been terrified by the lawlessness of the country. They have left us without warning. Now that you are here we know there will be no lawlessness, but our help did not understand you were so close.”

In such manner did the two men dissemble their real feelings, neither being deceived by the speech of the other.

The fox-like man slipped furtively from the saddle. The leader lurched his bulk to the ground.

“Señores,” proclaimed the fox-man, “you are honored indeed! Señor Huerta Hidalgo Martinez, the supreme dictator and commander of the armies of all Mexico, awaits at your doorway!

“And I am his servant, his secretary of war, Juan Ayala. It is with pleasure that we bring you the protection of the army. We shall maintain order and the sanctity of property rights!”

They marched into the cool dimness of the ’dobe. Outside, the men waited expectantly. There was no impatience. They understood the procedure. All in good time.

The three white men made known their names, saw that their visitors were seated. Dan Harder continued to clamp his knee between his huge hands. Vincent Shaffer ran his hands surreptitiously under the blanket to make sure that his precious brass shells were still there.

They betrayed him with a light rattle and the keen eyes of Juan Ayala sought his own. The hand came swiftly away and Shaffer fidgeted nervously.

“Señores,” proclaimed Ayala, “these are times filled with trouble. Because certain ragged bands of roving troops, claiming to be Federal soldiers, do not recognize the authority of Señor Huerta Hidalgo Martinez, we have skirmishes. Because of these skirmishes the irregular troops have turned bandits and have brought a reign of terror to the country.

“But our loyal men have brought safety. You should be grateful. I understand you have munitions of war here. There are cartridges, guns, pistols, even a machine gun. It is so?”

Shaffer flecked his pale lips with a pink tongue.

Robert Standish nodded expressionlessly.

“We have ammunition for our own protection,” he agreed.

Juan Ayala’s face fairly beamed.

“And now, since we are here,” he exclaimed, throwing out his arms in an inclusive gesture, “you have no further need for them!”

Huerta Hidalgo Martinez sat heavily, his face slumbering beneath massive inertia of the mind. Like the troops he, too, was familiar with the necessary preliminaries. Only his reddish-brown eyes flickered about the interior of the building. Those eyes still contained their burning loot hunger.

Robert Standish spoke swiftly in English to his two associates.

“You see what they’re driving at,” he said.

“Does he understand English?” chattered Shaffer.

Standish made a slight gesture with his palms.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll find out.”

Then, still speaking English, he raised his voice and spoke more slowly.

“I don’t like the looks of either of them. They are crooks, bandits of the lowest stamp. The men are murderers.”

Vincent Shaffer shivered, stretched forth a hand toward the rifle.

But neither the supreme dictator nor his secretary of war so much as batted an eyelash. Ayala turned inquiring eyes from one man to another.

“No,” said Standish, “he doesn’t understand English.”

“What if he had?” asked Shaffer.

“He’d have ordered our execution as traitors,” Standish said calmly.

Shaffer shivered into silence.

“And so, señores,” went on Ayala, “now that you have no use for your weapons and since our glorious army has such dire need, we know that your patriotism will be stirred and that you will make us a gift of them, taking in exchange our order upon the Mexican treasury.”

Shaffer groaned audibly.

Standish turned to his companions.

“What do you say, boys? After all, you’ve more at stake than I have — you’re younger. Shall we give in, or stick it out?”

Dan Harder answered the question, his knee still clasped between his huge hands.

“See ’em in hell first. You give the signal when to start things. Pick the leader. I’m goin’ to take this little bandbox apart an’ see what makes ’m tick.”

“No, no,” chattered Shaffer. “It would be folly. The men outside have their rifles ready to pour forth a volley through the door. There’s been some signal. I can see them from where I’m sitting.”

“Perhaps,” said Standish, “they’ll move on and leave us when they’ve stripped us clean. Oh, they’ll do that all right. One way is certain death. The other way we stand a chance. I don’t care much about life. I don’t care a bit about our possessions. What I do care about is the mine.”

There followed a silence. Then Standish spoke in Spanish.

“There is merit in what you say. You will give us a receipt, of course.”

The cunning face of Ayala lit with pleasure.

“Of course, señores,” he said, and barked a swift order.

Three men flung from their horses and came running into the room. The balance of the raiders sat upon their horses.

The gun was the first to be sent out. Then came the revolvers, and then Ayala himself jerked back the blanket. The men piled the cartridges upon the blanket and took blanket and all.

“You have other weapons concealed,” said Ayala, once he was assured the room was emptied of firearms.

It was too late then to change front, but Standish tried it.

“Only such weapons as may be scattered about and forgotten. Not more than two pistols in all. These would be trouble to find, and they would make no difference to your army. We must insist upon keeping those.”

“But,” purred Ayala, “the enemy might come. Then you would give them the other guns and that would be a big mistake.”

Vincent Shaffer answered the accusation, speaking in swift Spanish.

“Oh, but we would never, never give aid to the enemies of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez.”

Ayala’s dark, luminous eyes shifted to him with a mocking twinkle.

“Ah, but señor, you have already. But ten minutes before we rode up. He was an enemy fleeing for the pass on a horse. When our men surprised him he had in his belt shiny cartridges, which had not been worn long in the belt. They came fresh from a box!”

Shaffer drew a sleeve across his perspiring forehead.

“A spy. I thought so,” was Harder’s brief comment in English.

Once more Ayala barked a command.

The men darted to the corner, dug through the mud plaster, disclosed the secret hiding place, took out the machine gun, the extra case of pistols, the ammunition that had been stored against such an emergency as this.

“Spied again,” muttered Standish in soft English, as casually as though he had been commenting on the weather. “That cleans us out.”

Ayala wrote out a receipt in which he specified only a general quantity of munitions. He gave an order on the treasury of Mexico and passed the paper to the dictator.

The dictator touched the pencil with his blunt fingers. Ayala signed the name while the finger tip rested upon the pencil.

“Señores, it is done!

“And now how about our brave men? Surely you have provisions? You wish to welcome your deliverers. See, we have saved you from the dangers of the revolutionists! You are safe! Our men protect you. They must be fed!”

This time he did not wait for consent.

He barked an order to the men, and instantly every one was out of the saddle, scurrying about like so many leaves blown before an autumn wind, each helping himself. They scuttled into the cook-shack, through the bunk house, into the smelting room, through the little mill. Such things as they wanted they took.

Ayala looked about him with smiling eyes.

Huerta Hidalgo Martinez remained in stolid indifference of posture, but his burning eyes still retained their loot-hunger. Such mind as he possessed had been educated above the simple emotions of his followers. He knew that the mine was a thousand times more valuable than anything that was on the ground, ten thousand times more valuable than such loot as his men could secure. The mine, then, was the loot of the leader.

But his time was not yet. Like the men who had waited without, listening to the hum of voices within, patiently waiting for the preliminaries to get over with, the dictator sat heavily in the swivel chair, waiting for his smiling secretary of war to arrange the still further preliminaries that would give him the mine.

Once with the mine in possession there were rival companies who might be induced to bid for it; not for its full worth, to be sure, but a sufficient amount to pay the dictator well for his trouble. The price would be paid partly in munitions of war, partly in coin, partly in such other things as were difficult to procure, yet which caused the red glow of loot-hunger to shine from the leader’s eyes.

“Damned shame we didn’t stop ’em sooner. Let’s try it anyway,” grunted Harder, his knee still motionless. “I’m itchin’ for a chance to take this bimbo apart.”

“We’ve no weapons now,” reminded Standish.

Harder grunted.

“I’ve got my bare hands. That’s all I need for this one. He’s got a gun.”

“No, no, no!” yelped Shaffer. “I don’t want to die now. Not down here. No, no.”

Harder’s body moved by not so much as the flicker of a muscle.

“Say when,” he told Standish.

But Standish shook his head. His bleached eyes swept over the havoc that was being wrought.

“We’ve made our decision. Perhaps it was wrong, but it’s made. We’ve sacrificed everything to keep possession of the mine. To start hostilities now would be to lose it. Perhaps we can deceive these men with protestations of friendship. After they’ve cleaned out everything they can take they’ll move on. We’ll be left in possession of the mine. The Federal troops will follow.”

Harder grunted.

“If a white man’s got anything on the ball at all, he’s got a superiority to these guys. It’s a mistake ever to give in the first inch.”

Ayala’s smiling eyes surveyed them coldly.

“Señores, good news! I have decided that here we will make our headquarters for awhile. Behind us there is a body of troops who call themselves Federals. But they are really revolutionists, fighting against Huerta Hidalgo Martinez. We shall make headquarters here, send our troops back to the hill and rout these traitors.”

Standish bowed without the slightest flash of expression in his bleached eyes.

“You are welcome.”

There followed orders, bustling activity. The men mounted and swept back down the trail. Ayala commandeered the ’dobe as military headquarters. The three men were relegated to the cook shack. The mine had been looted clean of blankets, provisions, dishes, guns, ammunition, stores.

Ayala dropped the mask. He was in possession of the mine. The three white men were virtually prisoners. If they wished to try flight they were welcome, but their domination of the mining property was a thing of the past.

“You see,” announced Ayala, “much as I dislike to do this thing, I have proclaimed what you señores call martial law. Therefore all of the authority here is of the army. The authority which you possess is civil authority, and it is suspended until the army moves on.”

“When will that be?” asked Shaffer.

Ayala shrugged his shoulders.

“I am afraid, my dear señor, we will remain here after you have departed.”

The words were interrupted by a burst of firing from the crest of the hill. Huerta Hidalgo Martinez climbed stiffly into his saddle and galloped to the scene of the battle.

Within an hour the firing ceased.

A rat-like horseman scattered gravel up the trail as he brought a military dispatch to Juan Ayala. That individual then sought out the three white men.

“Congratulations, señores. We have saved your property. The revolutionists were pressing forward, intent, no doubt, upon taking the mine. But our brave men have checked them. The enemy are in retreat.”

Harder’s heavy finger tapped Standish upon the shoulder.

“Somebody comin’,” he said.

The finger pointed up-trail, toward the pass in the mountains. Where the trail wound around the side of the hill a string of horses caught the bright sun and cast black shadows along the glittering hillside.

Standish looked appealingly toward Ayala. The powerful binoculars which Standish had used earlier in the day were now slung over Ayala’s shoulders, a “present” to the secretary of war.

Ayala raised them to his eyes.

“Ah-h-h-h,” he breathed softly.

At length he passed them to Standish.

“The señor would look?” he asked.

Standish raised the glasses, and then swift expressions contorted his face. To the men who had been with him on the mine, watching the expressionless lines of his placid countenance day after day, it seemed that a mask had slipped.

The lips twitched, drained of color.

“It is a señorita?” asked Ayala with purring satisfaction.

Standish turned an agonized face to his two companions.

“It is Rita!” he said in English.

Ayala raised his voice.

“An escort to meet the señorita who rides toward us. She may see the men and take alarm. Perhaps she will hear firing. Escort her, explain there is no cause for alarm. Bring her directly to me. It would be deplorable to have her take alarm and ride back through the mountains.”

Three men scuttled to their horses. Regardless of the progress of battle, Juan Ayala kept a sufficient escort at “headquarters” to cope with any emergency.

Chapter III

Ayala Strikes

Standish gave swift instructions to the other two white men.

“Don’t let her have any idea of what’s going on. Try to keep things smooth on the surface until dark, and then we’ll sneak out. Thank God this dark-skinned bandit doesn’t understand English!”

Ayala turned to them, smilingly, bearningly.

“How fortunate that we are here to protect this señorita!”

“Yeah, ain’t it, now,” muttered Harder in English.

There came the sound of hoofs, and the girl swept into the yard, flanked by the armed Mexican horsemen.

“Dad!”

He helped her from the horse.

She gave him her lips, rested for a moment in his arms. Then she turned to the others.

“Vincent! My, but it’s good to see you!”

Shaffer held her hand, looked into her eyes and straightened. It was as though he had taken on new courage. A coward for himself, he was swept out of himself when the safety of the woman he loved was at stake.

The girl turned to Harder.

“Hello, Dan.”

Her eyes dropped before his gaze as one of the huge hands enveloped her little one. The eyes rested upon those clasped hands, and the girl stiffened.

A slow flush came to Dan’s cheek as he watched her eyes, fixed in fascination upon those huge hands of his, hands that seemed almost a deformity.

And the girl tore her eyes away, flushing as one would flush who had been caught staring at the empty sleeve of a cripple.

Standish made a formal presentation in Spanish.

“And this is our friend and benefactor, Señor Don Juan Ayala, secretary of war to the dictator of the Mexican Republic. He has kindly consented to keep an armed guard about our mine, protecting us from the bandits who infest the country.”

The girl gave him her hand, murmuring a greeting in liquid Spanish.

Ayala’s hat swept the ground. The extravagant phrases which poured from his lips represented the superlative of politeness — and hypocrisy.

The girl beamed. It was her second trip to Mexico and she had become accustomed to flowery speech, yet the feminine ever welcomes flattering exaggerations.

“How fortunate you have a guard, dad. I was worried about you. They said I could avoid any bandits by coming in from the other side and going through the mountain pass. I understand the country to the west is given over to marauding bands.”

Her father nodded.

“Times are rather unsettled. Whatever possessed you to come?”

Once more the eyes dropped, and once more they sought the huge, hairy hands of Dan Harder.

“I wanted to see if you were all right,” she said.

“Ah, Señorita Standish,” purred Ayala. “You need never worry about the safety of your father. Now that the government knows he has such an estimable and beautiful daughter we will guard his safety as one of the most treasured possessions of the republic.”

She flashed him a smile and then walked toward the ’dobe.

“I’ll wash a little of the dust off,” she said.

Standish held his breath. Would Ayala stop her, explain that the military had taken possession of the ’dobe? But Ayala turned a reassuring smile upon Standish. “You shall see that we are gentlemen, indeed,” he purred.

Dan Harder strolled off toward the canon. From time to time his gaze dropped to his huge hands.

“She looked at ’em as though they belonged to an ape,” he muttered, and his voice was hard with anguish.

A rider was summoned by Ayala, who hurriedly galloped toward the crest of the hill, where the army had dug trenches. Harder watched him go with grim lips. Beyond doubt Huerta Hidalgo Martinez was being apprised of the rich prize which had dropped so unexpectedly into their laps.

For an hour Dan paced in the sandy heat of the canon, his lips moving inarticulately, his great hands clenching and unclenching.

He returned to the camp, rounded the corner of the cook house, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

Rita’s voice had come to his ears, the tail end of a sentence:

“—and then I saw those awful hands. Frankly, I had come to tell him I loved him. I was going to accept his proposal. It was such a beautiful letter, dad. And then I saw his hands — ugh!”

Dan Harder turned and walked softly away. He had not meant to eavesdrop. So it was as he felt? The girl’s sensitive soul had turned in disgust from those hands. While he had been gone, she had, to some extent, forgotten them. His letter had appealed to her.

And then she had seen the hands. Her eyes had surveyed those great hands with something that was almost horror.

He sighed, and found Juan Ayala regarding him through half-closed lids. His expression was that of a rattlesnake that is gathering his scaly body into rustling coils.

The shadows lengthened. The breeze turned and blew up the draws, became hot as the breath from an oven. Rita Standish divided her time between Juan Ayala and Vincent Shaffer. As time passed, Shaffer regained much of his composure. He reached the conclusion that the climax had been reached, that there would be no further trouble. Gradually he began to accept Ayala at his face value.

Couriers rode back and forth between the hidden army and the secretary of war. The Wolf did not appear.

Ayala received a message from a rider, glanced at the setting sun and summoned Vincent Shaffer into the ’dobe house.

Shaffer did not emerge.

A messenger stated Ayala’s desires to Dan Harder. The fox-faced secretary of war desired the presence of the gringo with the hairy hands.

Dan looked about him, saw Rita chatting with her father, lively, vivacious. He glanced at the setting sun, squared his shoulders and entered the ’dobe.

The door swung shut.

Juan Ayala regarded him with the face of a vicious fox.

“You wish to take me to pieces?” he asked, in excellent English.

A gun butt whizzed through the air, swung by one of the sandaled soldiers. Juan Ayala raised the revolver that was in his slender hand.

Dan Harder took the blow of the rifle butt on the shoulder. By the simple expedient of raising his huge shoulder, he had protected his temple. His great hands snatched for the gun, jerked it from the hands of the astonished soldier.

The muzzle was thrust forward, into the pit of Ayala’s stomach. The slender secretary of war wheezed his surprise as the wind was forced from his lungs. His paralyzed diaphragm refused to function. His mouth popped open as he gasped for air.

The hairy hands caught the outstretched arm of the soldier that had swung the gun. There came the sickening sound of crunching bone.

The soldier was hurled through the air, struck his head on the side of the battered desk and slumped to the floor.

Another soldier thrust a glittering bayonet. Harder avoided it by a swift side thrust of his body.

His two arms stretched out. One great hand caught the secretary of war by the neck. The other closed about the shoulder of the man who had thrust the bayonet.

Upon the floor, bound, gagged, Vincent Shaffer watched the action with drawn, white face and great, appealing eyes.

The gun butt of the third soldier crashed downward while Harder was spread out between the two men, both of his great hands occupied. The sound of the thud upon his skull sounded like a stone hitting a hollow tree trunk.

Dan Harder slumped to the floor.

Juan Ayala regained his wind enough to breathe. He licked his pale lips, gasped again and then stammered.

“The man is a devil. The Wolf will see that he does not die easily. Save him with great care. When he regains consciousness we will show him how we kill men in Mexico. Perhaps we will thrust a pointed stake through his body and leave him sitting, spitted in the sun for the flies and the ants.”

Vincent Shaffer gave a great shudder.

Busy hands knotted ropes about the arms and legs of the unconscious fighter.

“Tie him with double ropes,” instructed Ayala. “He has the strength of an ape in those hairy hands.”

Shaffer rolled over, his gagged mouth sought to formulate words in vain. In his mind there echoed and reechoed the knowledge that doomed them all.

“He understands English. He understands English. He understands English,” ran through his brain in sickening monotony. He tried to banish the thought, tried to keep the words from ringing in his brain, but in vain.

Something thudded against him — the unconscious body of Dan Harder.

Juan Ayala ran deft fingers over his uniform, adjusting it, making sure there was no dust clinging to it. He barked a command to the ragged soldiers who watched the prisoners, and then stepped out into the soft light of the early dusk.

“Señor, I am sorry that your help have left and that there is no food for yourself and the señorita. Huerta Hidalgo Martinez has conveyed his compliments and requests that you and the señorita join him for the evening meal.

“We will probably concentrate our force at the crest of the hill where we can be better guarded against any surprise attack during the night. A tent will be placed for the señor and the señorita. Your safety will be assured by armed sentries who will stand before the door of the tent.

“Your companions have strolled on down the trail. I have ordered horses for you.”

The girl’s eyes danced.

“Armed sentries, a soldier’s camp! Won’t that be fun! Come on, dad. I’m anxious to meet this famous general.”

Standish hesitated. Should he whisper to his daughter that this general was more generally known under the title of the Wolf? Then she would know, be aware of her danger. But would it do any good?

Perhaps, after all, it would be better to let the girl continue to believe she was an honored guest instead of a prisoner. Her attitude of ingenuous innocence was all that could save her now. The time for resistance had passed. But there would be no moon. Perhaps after dark—

He looked around for his two companions.

A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw they had vanished. He could understand how they would prefer to “stroll” down to the encampment. In the gathering dusk they would slip off the trail, lie in wait, try to effect some rescue under cover of the darkness.

“We are ready,” said Standish in expressionless tones.

The horses appeared. The girl and her father swung into the saddle. Juan Ayala assisted the girl and then mounted. Two soldiers came in the rear.

“One is never safe in this country without an armed escort,” muttered Ayala, “particularly when one is guarding that which is more precious than gems.”

The girl flashed him a swift smile.

“You are so thoughtful,” she said.

Chapter IV

Hopeless Odds

In the ’dobe house a soldier removed the gag from Shaffer’s mouth. He propped the bound man against the wall and glared at him with angered eyes.

“Bah. I am on duty to guard the pigs of gringos!” he muttered. “And there is loot to be had! There is a cache of liquor that our brave comrades have uncovered!”

Shaffer said nothing.

The soldier turned to Harder, tugged at the unconscious shoulders, moved the hulking body up against the wall.

“He is a great beef, this gringo,” he muttered. “He will die by torture, and such as he take a long time in dying.”

He went to a corner of the room, scraped the floor clean and made a small fire from bits of splintered wood. He left the place for a few moments and returned with a pan filled with frijoles. He sat them over the fire to warm.

Dan Harder stirred, opened his eyes, then closed them with an inarticulate moan.

Heat filled the room. The smell of the sputtering frijoles mingled with the unwashed body odors of the guard. From without came the sound of loud laughter, the babble of voices.

The guard removed the pan of frijoles, took some tortillas from a dirty knapsack and made his evening meal. He offered his prisoners neither food nor drink.

Shaffer tried to speak, but words failed to emerge from his dry mouth. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

Harder studied him grimly.

“They’ve got the girl?”

Shaffer nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Harder thought out loud.

“She’s safe until she meets the dictator. Ayala won’t dare to touch her until — until the dictator has found a new attraction. They’ll kill the old man of course.”

Shaffer shuddered again.

From without the talking became louder. The laughter ceased.

“We gotta do something quick or it’ll be too late,” observed Harder. “I guess they don’t kill us until mornin’. Did you hear ’em mention?”

“No,” said Shaffer in a dry, harsh voice. “They didn’t mention.”

The voices outside rose in a burst of confused noise. There came the sound of a cry, a shot.

The guard set down his half-emptied pan of frijoles, and made swiftly for the door.

Harder gave a lurch, rolled to the floor. As soon as the figure of the guard was swallowed in the darkness, he rolled over and over, swiftly, silently, rolling toward the growling embers of the fire.

He upset the frijoles, rolled directly upon the glowing coals.

The odor of singing hair filled the room. Then came the unforgetable smell of burning flesh. Harder lay with expressionless face, staring up at the ceiling.

Shaffer coughed and winced.

“Those are the hands that made the girl sick of me,” said Harder in a level voice. “Hope your dainty stomach doesn’t get turned with the smell of burning hair and skin.”

Shaffer tried to speak, but failed. His face drained of color. He slumped down, weak, sick.

Something bent over him. The odor of burnt flesh became stronger.

“All over now,” said Harder’s voice, and the great fingers busied themselves with the knots of the ropes about his wrists.

A moment more and Shaffer’s hands were free.

“Untie your ankles yourself,”- said Harder. “I’ll watch the door. We want that rifle if we can get it.”

Shaffer’s trembling hands groped for the knot in the rope, found it and fluttered about it helplessly.

“It’s too tight,” he stammered. “C-c-can’t we get a knife? Oh, hurry!”

Harder returned to him.

“What t’ell?” he muttered.

His great hands dropped to the rope. The fingers twisted at the knot and the rope came loose.

A shadow blotted out the faint light which came through the doorway. The embers of the fire were stirred by some vagrant bit of wind and flared up.

“Ah-h-h,” muttered the man in the doorway, and rustled into stealthy motion. There sounded the crisp click of a rifle lock.

Harder’s outstretched hand, groping swiftly along the floor, caught the man by the ankle. His feet jerked out from under him. The crash of his body shook the ground.

The soldier turned like a snake. His hand flashed the bayonet from its scabbard, whipped it upward.

Harder’s great hand closed over the wrist. His other hand compressed the neck.

Shaffer ran around in futile circles, watching the swift pulsations of shadowy struggle upon the floor.

After a few moments the shadows became still.

Harder arose.

“You take the gun and the cartridges. You won’t be worth a damn without ’em. I’ve got my bare hands.”

Shaffer felt the welcome coolness of the rifle barrel. His eager hands clasped the cartridge belt around him.

“Let’s go,” said Harder.

They slipped out into the calm silence of the semitropic night. The soldier had quelled the disturbance of the remaining troops. They were grouped about a fire some eighty yards away. After Ayala’s departure they had uncovered the cache of liquors which had been buried under the floor of the cook shack. They drank frenziedly, seeking to consume it all before Ayala’s return.

The two worked their cautious way down the starlit slope, keeping their groping feet in the trail lest the rattle of a loose rock should warn the others. At length they reached the floor of the canon.

Shaffer turned toward the mountain pass.

“Wrong direction,” muttered Harder.

Shaffer stood his ground. “You’re... you’re not going in the other direction? Not toward the camp of troops!”

Harder looked at him curiously, his wide eyes seeking to find the expression upon the blur of the white face.

“Sure, where’d yuh think we was goin’?”

Shaffer drew back as though Harder’s great hands were reaching for him. “That’s plain foolishness, suicide. By traveling all night we can get to the settlement through the pass. We can wire the consul at Mexico City. They’ll dispatch fresh troops, close the pass, bring re-enforcements to the others. The Wolf will be trapped between the two forces, captured, executed.”

Harder’s voice cut like a knife:

“Yeah? And in the meantime?”

Shaffer shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t be a fool! It’s the only way. It’s suicide the other way. Two men against an army? You must be crazy.” Harder moved toward him.

“Gimme the rifle then.”

Shaffer jumped backward.

“No, no. Don’t be foolish. This is our only chance. Think of what it means. Come with me. They’ll kill us or capture us and that means death by torture.”

“I don’t want you with me,” patiently explained Harder. “Gimme the rifle.”

Shaffer continued to draw back in a panic.

“No, no. That would leave me unarmed. You’ve got your strength, your hands. I’m helpless.”

He turned swiftly, ran clattering up the canon.

From the flat above came a yell. The soldiers about the fire had heard the running steps.

A hail sounded from the darkness above.

Rattling stones marked the sound of Shaffer’s flight. A rifle vomited forth a stabbing spurt of ruddy fire. Another and another. The stones continued to rattle.

Dan Harder slipped in the shadows of a bush, stood perfectly still.

From above came more shouts and shots, and then footsteps sounded on the trail. A dark form bulked between him and the stars. Another and another ran past, staggering as they ran. The warm air of the still night reeked with the combined odors of alcohol and garlic.

After a moment Dan slipped from the bush and ran silently down the canon, toward the rim where the ruddy glow of camp fires shone against the star-studded sky.

After a hundred yards his keen ears detected something on the trail behind him. He looked back, thought he saw something in the darkness, and threw himself to one side of the trail.

A horseman was galloping through the darkness, a messenger sent to warn Juan Ayala of the escape of the prisoners.

The horse detected Harder, crouched by the side of the trail. Snorting and plunging wildly, it jumped sidewise from the trail, leaped over a bush and stood snorting and quivering.

Dan gathered himself for a spring, but the rider was too filled with liquor to appreciate the significance of the horse’s manner. He muttered thick Spanish oaths and pulled the horse back into the trail. A moment more and he had clattered away.

Harder sighed.

He had one advantage and one advantage alone. The men thought that both of their prisoners had escaped up the trail toward the mountain passes.

He plodded down the dusty trail. He had his bare hands, nothing else, and he was moving against an army. To be sure it was a ragged semblance of an army, raw, undrilled troops, more intent upon loot than discipline. But they were armed and they thought nothing of using those arms. Particularly were they efficient when it came to the shooting down of unarmed men.

The hill loomed black before Dan. Upon its crest the fires seemed to hang between earth and sky. Dan slowed his pace now and crept forward an inch or two at a time, listening to the noises which came to his ears through the still night.

A snatch of conversation in Mexican from two men who must have been within fifty feet.

“And now he will torture the guard who let the gringos escape. In the morning we will scour the country. They cannot get away. Perhaps they may hide, yes. But they have to eat and to drink, those gringos.

“There is no water save in the canon. There is no food. We will push rapidly to the summit, and there we will wait with rifles. But we must not shoot them. Particularly the big one with the hairy hands. They are going to sit him on a stake. Ah, but he will squirm!”

Then there was silence. The breeze shifted, and the rest of the words became indistinguishable. Dan moved forward a few feet. The next he heard of the conversation it was more to his right.

“Most beautiful señorita. It is the happy lot of the dictator. The father is a fool. He thinks—”

A shadow arose suddenly, directly in the trail.

“Halt! Who is it?”

Dan was too far to reach the man. He debated whether to chance a spring and grapple or to remain quiet and trust to luck. Could he chance a bullet? Would the shot bring the camp down upon him?

And then a voice sounded from beyond the sentry.

Dan sighed his relief as he realized the challenge had been for one coming down the slope.

“Amigo. I go back to the other camp. The Wolf is not to know until the men have been recaptured. I fit out a squad to ride to the crest of the pass. We shall have the gringos bottled in the canon. With the early streaks of dawn we will trail them. Ah, it will be sport!”

“Pass, amigo, and may you have luck in your hunt If you capture them, remember that I have had experience in the Yaqui method of torture.”

The other grunted.

“The stake is most complete.”

Footsteps came down the trail. Dan could have kicked out his feet and touched the man as he walked by.

The sentry crouched down once more, squatting on his haunches. As he crouched he became invisible except as a vague hulk of shadow.

Dan could have rushed him, caught his neck in his great hands before the sentry could have given an alarm. But when the next man found the sentry away from his post, the trail unwatched — what then? Or if he should stumble upon a dead body? Dan knew that he had to slip around the sentry. Minutes were priceless, seconds golden, and yet he must wait motionless.

At length the sentry changed his position slightly.

Dan groped about with his hands, caught a small pebble, and threw it to the right As it struck the surface of the ground the sentry rose to a crouching position, his rifle ready.

There followed seconds of wait, and then the man settled down.

Dan flipped another pebble.

This time the rock sounded exactly like the step of a man. The sentry jumped upright.

“Who is it?” he called.

When the silence had swallowed his voice he started on a swift run for the place where the noise had sounded.

Dan slipped past along the trail, crawling on his stomach.

The sentry puttered around through the bushes, walking, stopping, listening. Then he returned to his post muttering to himself strange curses in his native tongue.

Dan slipped past two blanketed figures snoring up at the stars, skirted the glow of a blazing fire, and tried to get his bearings.

The horses were feeding together up on a plateau. From time to time he could hear the snorts of the animals. There was a strong guard watching them. The dictator knew too well the advantage his mounts gave him. Playing the game of banditry that he was carrying on, swift mobility of troops was all that enabled him to hold out.

Dan groaned. He must have horses, and yet the getting of horses would be the most difficult part of his work. He picked his way through the fires. A tent glowed ahead. The oil lamp within showed distorted shadows on the canvas.

A sentry was silhouetted against the glow, standing stoically, his rifle at his side.

Dan advanced toward the tent.

Some subtle sense warned Dan in time of the horseman that was coming from the rear. He threw himself down amid a knot of blanketed sleepers.

The rider picked his way between the fires, peering to right and left. A pistol showed in his hand.

“I saw him walking,” he muttered as he went by, talking to himself in low tones. Evidently he had seen Dan’s great figure against the glow of the tent and had come to investigate.

Dan lay still for several seconds. One of the sleepers flung out an arm, and it touched Dan’s body, but the sleeper failed to awake.

Dan noticed that the arms were stacked some little distance to one side and that a crouching figure was before them. Much as Dan wanted a weapon, he dared not risk alarming the camp.

At length he rolled to his stomach, crawled along on all fours, then stood erect.

He stood less chance of detection walking upright than in crawling. Occasionally men came and went through the camp. The sentries challenged them, but the others slept on or let them pass. A crawling man meant menace. A walker would presumably be one of the army.

And then Dan came within earshot of the tent, moving so that he was at the back, away from the sentry who guarded the flap.

“I feel that it is time for my daughter to retire, general,” came the tired tones of Standish.

“Not yet, not yet,” purred Ayala.

Dan could see the squat shadow cast by the general at the head of the table.

“Where are our two companions?” asked Standish casually. His voice showed that he hoped they had escaped; that he asked the question as a matter of form.

“Where are you going?” said Ayala.

Chapter V

“The Devil of the Hands.”

What followed came too rapidly. Harder had no chance to interfere.

For a moment he caught a silhouette of the dagger as it was poised over the back of Robert Standish’s stool. Then there sounded a blow, the thud of a heavy object slumping to the ground, the shriek of a girl, and the laugh of a sentry.

Evidently the man on guard had been listening for that thud.

Upon the white canvas there showed a mass of struggling shadows. Once more there was the scream of the girl, and then men tramped upon the floor of the tent.

“Take him away,” said Huerta Hidalgo Martinez, and his voice was thick.

The men left the tent.

“And now I will leave you,” said Juan Ayala, his voice purring, the words in English.

The tent flap dropped, and there were two shadows facing each other. The girl’s profile showed with startling clarity, delicate, sensitive, frozen with horror.

The shadow of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez was more distorted by the light and the slope of the tent. He looked much like a huge black spider moving slowly but very surely indeed toward his prey.

Dan Harder fancied that other eyes than his were watching the shadows on the canvas. He prayed the girl would have sense enough to strike the light from the table. Dan advanced, his great hands spread before him.

The Wolf sprang forward. The girl upset the table, either consciously or accidentally. From within sounded little struggle noises.

Dan Harder pinched the canvas between thumb and forefinger. His great wrists snapped back and down and a long rent ripped in the back of the tent.

Harder crawled through. His hand rested for a moment upon the bare arm of the girl and then slipped along the smooth flesh to the coarse neck of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez.

“Eh?” grunted the dictator. “Who—”

He never finished.

For a few moments there was the sound of struggling feet beating a tattoo upon the floor.

Outside the guard laughed again.

The girl’s hands moved over the bulky form, rested for a moment upon the backs of Dan Harder’s hands.

“You!” she whispered.

“Yes,” said Dan Harder.

He hoped she would not realize just what those hands were doing.

The tattoo of the fluttering feet died away and all was silence.

“This way,” whispered Dan.

He led her from the tent, crawling through the rent he had torn in the back. The form of the dictator lay still. His feet had ceased their rapping.

Outside the sentry had stopped laughing. He was bent forward, listening.

“Quick, this way. There’s a horse over by that tent.”

“It’s Ayala’s horse,” she said.

They ran swiftly.

Behind them they could see the flare of light as some one threw the beam from an electric flash light about the tent.

Then there came a hoarse cry of rage.

“Look! Look at his neck! It is the Devil of the Hands. See the rip in the canvas. Quick!”

The startled horse jerked back. Dan Harder’s great hand caught the reins, held him, plunging and snorting. Dan swung his bulk into the saddle, gripped the girl by the waist, lifted her through the air as though she had been but a feather.

It was the horse of Juan Ayala. The saddle was strong, the horse was fleet They thundered along the trail. Behind than the camp burst into uproar.

“I’m sorry,” said Harder, “that I couldn’t have been a few minutes sooner.”

He made no further reference to the death of her father.

The sentry sprang out into the trail. Harder swung the horse directly at him.

At the last minute the galloping animal veered instinctively. The sentry’s rifle flashed and the horse gave a side-wise leap, a scream of pain.

And then they were in the trail, thundering up the dark canon. Behind, the camp was confusion. Guns spattered forth, bullets flew singing overhead. Cries and shouts added to the confusion. More rifles rattled forth.

The horse wavered, missed a stride, staggered, then ran on.

“Hard hit,” said Dan.

“Then — there’s no chance?” she asked softly, and her arm slipped around Dan’s neck.

“Never give up,” he said, missing the significance of the words and her circling arm. “The bunch at the mine have horses, and they should be where we can get ’em. The soldiers there are pretty drunk. The horses back at the main camp are up on a plateau. It ’ll take ’em a little time to get ’em ready.”

The slope to the mine loomed ahead. The horse beneath them slowed, sank to his knees, groaned, and Dan lifted the girl clear.

“Thanks, old man,” he said to the horse, then rushed on foot up the incline to the mine.

“Que es, que es?” asked a Mexican hurriedly.

Dan answered him in his own language. “The Federals, a surprise attack. The Wolf has been killed. The troops will soon be here. Flee for your life.”

The soldier was confused by drink. His clouded wits groped with the situation. From behind came the stabbing bursts of flame that marked the rattling rifle fire. Following their custom, the Mexicans were registering excitement by lavish gunfire.

Two other men appeared in the dark. It was their companion who passed on the news.

“We are defeated. The Federals. Flee for your lives!”

Dan clung to the shadows. A horse snorted. The great hands reached for the bridle.

“This way,” he said, and led the horse along the edge of the shadows.

Ahead there loomed the ’dobe house. Before it was tied another horse.

“Hold this one,” said Dan, and went to the second animal.

Up the trail, toward the mountains, came the sound of swift hoofbeats. Dan chuckled. “Some of the drunken soldiers beating it in a panic. They’ll pass the word on to the bunch that are guardin’ the pass. Looks like luck’s comin’ our way.”

About the remains of a fire were sprawled motionless figures, bandits who had drunk deeply and were dead to the world.

There came the sound of a horse scrambling up the trail from the canon. Before they realized it, the animal was upon them. The beams of the electric flash light stabbed their way through the night, rested full upon Dan Harder.

“Ah-h-h-h,” purred the voice of Juan Ayala. “The Devil of the Hands, and he is unarmed.”

They could see his right hand rise with the pistol.

The girl screamed softly.

Dan Harder charged squarely at the stabbing flame which spurted from the pistol. The girl could see him rushing up the beam of light.

Ayala was on the horse. The advantage of the weapon was his. The girl shuddered, tried to close her eyes, but they remained open, glued to the strange spectacle.

Dan’s hands reached the horse’s head. She saw one thumb and forefinger pinch the animal’s nostrils. The other arm swung upward and over the back of the horse’s head.

As Dan’s weight suddenly bore down upon the horse’s neck, the animal winced, dropped to one knee. It shook vigorously, trying to regain its balance, get air through the pinched nostrils.

The flash light snapped out, described an arc and settled in a clump of sage, showing the actors in the strange scene as great blobs of grotesque shadows.

The horse crashed to the earth.

She heard swift motion, saw once more the stabbing spurt of orange red flame, and then she heard an oath from Juan Ayala.

“I always wanted to take you to pieces,” she heard Dan Harder grunt.

“Help! Help! The hands! The Devil of the Hands!” shrieked Ayala, and then his voice gurgled into a rattle.

“Ready?” asked Harder’s voice, startlingly close to her.

For answer she swung into the saddle of the horse whose bridle she held. Harder swung to the other.

“Did you get his gun?” she heard her voice asking.

He gave a laugh which sent shivers down her spine.

“Gun, hell! My bare hands have got me through this far, and they’ll go the rest of the way!”

They clattered down the slope, hit the canon.

Behind them was a great commotion of shots and shouts. The girl realized that there was mounted pursuit, but whether they were gaining or not she could not tell.

Dan Harder knew every inch of the trail. He pushed the horses forward at top speed.

Half an hour passed. They were in the mountain pass now, working their way upward between great dark walls which shut out the stars.

A horse whinnied ahead.

“Who is it?” called a voice in Spanish.

“The Federals. Surrender at once!” yelled Harder.

There was no further conversation from ahead, but they could hear the pounding hoofbeats of the horse.

“Here’s hoping he stampedes the others,” muttered Harder.

The sounds of pursuit were dropping behind. It had been the grim personality of The Wolf, the subtle cruelty of Juan Ayala, which had kept the bandits in some semblance of military organization. With those removed they lacked the incentive to push onward.

The canon walls came closer together. The trail wound upward in a series of zigzags.

“You remember the letter you wrote me?” asked the girl softly.

Harder thought of her remarks about his hands.

Perhaps, he thought, she was going to break it to him easy now, let him down gently. Perhaps she was going to try to apologize for her feeling.

He would forestall all that.

“No,” he said shortly.

She became silent.

They rode upward. All pursuit had quit or dropped so far behind it could not be heard. Through the silence of the calm night they pushed their jaded horses.

The summit showed before them. There was no guard. The men ahead had spread the alarm of the defeat, the pursuing Federals. The bandits had scurried away from the main trail, taken to the mountain wilderness. They knew full well what capture would mean.

The trail sloped gently downward.

The east changed color. The stars shrunk to pin-points.

“I heard what you said to your father about my hands,” said Dan, blurting forth the words sullenly.

She looked at him in surprise.

“Come on, faster,” he said, and spurred his wearied horse to greater speed.

The east became golden, crimson. The sun burst into view. Below them lay the white buildings of a city, the place into which Rita had come by railroad. The bandit troops would never come within striking distance of the railroad.

“Safe now,” said Harder, but did not slacken the speed of his horse.

An hour later they clattered through the street, went directly to the railroad station.

Harder swung stiffly from his mount, helped the girl from hers. Once more he felt her eyes upon his hands.

They showed cruel bums. Great blisters had been formed and had had broken. The hair had been singed away. One of Ayala’s pistol bullets had grazed the flesh, leaving a seared streak of red.

Harder moved his hands uncomfortably.

The girl’s slender hands grasped one of his great paws, raised it swiftly to her lips.

Dan Harder stood stupefied. Then he caught the direction of the girl’s eyes, and followed her gaze.

Standing against a corner of the railroad station, his white face mirroring incredulity and shame, stood Vincent Shaffer.

As Harder’s eyes rested upon him he slunk around the corner, away from their sight.

The girl’s eyes turned to Dan’s.

“I meant that. I think they’re wonderful, those hands!”

And then he caught her to him, for her eyes showed that she meant what she had said. The events of the past twenty-four hours had taught her much of character.

And as they embraced in the warm sunlight of early morning, Vincent Shaffer, the fastidious dresser, owner of the shapely hands, slunk down the side streets like a whipped cur, ashamed to face them, ashamed to face himself.

Content

Erle Stanley Gardner
Bare Hands

Chapter I On Guard

Chapter II In the Hands of “The Wolf?”

Chapter III Ayala Strikes

Chapter IV Hopeless Odds

Chapter V “The Devil of the Hands.”