Ronicky Doone's Treasure by Max Brand (leveled readers TXT) 📕

As Hugh Dawn disappeared inside his shack, Jerry strolled slowly toward her own hut. She recalled the man who had brought her and her father safely from the house when Moon and his band stole toward it. She recalled the keen face of Ronicky when they worked over the puzzling record through which Cosslett had left trace of his buried treasure. Swift of hand, steady of eye, resourceful of brain — after all, her father might be right, and in the slender figure of Ronicky there might be locked sufficient power to match the big body and the strong brain of Jack Moon. What the eyes told her was simply an overwhelming contrast; what the memory told her equaled the scales to some extent. But how could her father speak of Ronicky and Moon as though they were antagonists, when Ronicky was now, it seemed, a member of Moon’s own band? Did he mean that the two might battle for supremacy inside the band?

She swerved directly so as to pass close to Ronicky Doone, and she noted that he paid not the slightest heed to her. At that, she paused. He had admired her before, she knew. Perhaps it might have been more than admiration, but now he looked past her into thin space.

“Ronicky!” she murmured, as she paused near him.

His glance turned upon her swiftly, and he nodded; but then his eyes traveled past her again and toward those groups of gamblers, flashing from face to face as though he found the twelve an intricate and dangerous study. Why was that? she wondered.

“I’ve come to tell you, Ronicky,” she went on, “that our troubles are ended. Jack Moon is going to let dad leave in the morning. In fact, we can leave now, if we wish!”

“You can?” cried Ronicky, in such a tone of amazement that she stared at him. “Then — then how quick can you get going?”

“But we’re not going to go until the morning.”

Ronicky sighed. “I thought not,” he muttered. “I s’pose Moon told you it’d be better to wait till there was some light on the trails over the mountains. He’s deep!”

“You hate him blindly,” insisted the girl. “But that isn’t the point. In the morning I may leave without having a chance to see you again. Now that you’ve taken up this terrible life, I suppose I’ll never see you again after tomorrow!”

“I sure take it kind,” said Ronicky, but his voice was cold, “that you’ve wasted any time thinking about that.”

“Oh, Ronicky,” cried the girl, “I know you’re close to hating me for things I’ve said to you in the last few days, but it’s always been because it hurt me to see you go the way you’ve gone. But to the end of my life, Ronicky, I’ll keep hold on my first impression of you, generous and brave, and kinder than any man who has ever come into my life. I want you to know this before I see you for the last time!”

To her surprise, the tribute merely made him smile, and there was no gentleness in his face.

“You ain’t seeing me for the last time,” he declared. “And — Heaven willing — tomorrow ain’t going to be the last day, either. Jack Moon’ll see to that.”

“You think he doesn’t mean what he’s promised? That he’ll keep us after all?”

Ronicky merely smiled. And she was angered again.

“You hate him,” she said fiercely, “merely because you know that he sees through you; and that — that’s contemptible! I came here to tell you how sorry I am that you’ve gone the way you are going — but now I only have to say that I scorn your suspicions — and I scorn you!”

But as she turned away she saw that he still was paying no heed to her but kept his eager, intent gaze fixed upon the gamblers.

The ending of that interview had been marked by Jack Moon, and when he saw the girl toss her head and turn away he smiled with satisfaction. It meant that his most daring scheme had met with perfect success. Only by using Ronicky Doone as a foil had he been able to worm his way into the confidence of the girl. Now he was on the high road to success. That road was a difficult and long one to travel, even now. But much might be done with caution and steady diplomacy. Great problems still confronted him. Hugh Dawn must be disposed of. And terrible Ronicky Doone must be brushed from the way. Most difficult of all, the girl must listen to him when he decided to talk as he had never yet talked to any human being.

There would be time for these things. Meanwhile, the last few minutes had brought about a state of affairs for which he had been watching and waiting.

The gambling had ceased to be a gay and noisy affair. The exuberance of spirits which naturally followed the finding of the gold had gradually died away, and the silence of the gaming hall now brooded over the little groups, each squatted cross-legged about saddle blankets. The winner now dragged in his stakes with a glint of the eye. The loser saw his gold go with a savage out-thrust of the lower jaw.

The losers were more numerous than the winners. Silas Treat had almost cleaned out the entire stakes of his own group. Baldy McNair had well nigh emptied the pockets at another blanket. Indeed, in each group there gradually came to be one corner toward which there was a steady drifting of profits. There was a natural reason. The best gamblers had avoided one another’s company, and each had selected a place where he would have a chance for uninterrupted fleecing.

In only one place had things gone amiss, and that was with the most expert gambler of all, Bud Kent. The little bow-legged, broad-shouldered fellow ordinarily was a steady winner, and this night he saw a chance to win, at his own blanket, a hundred thousand dollars in better than cash. So, with glinting eyes, he had settled to his task. But fate, called luck among gamblers, was against him. His three of a kind was invariably topped by a higher three. And once a flush was beaten by a higher flush! When he bluffed, someone was sure to call him. When he nursed the betting cautiously in the beginning to keep from betraying the real strength of his hand, someone was sure to call him, and