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

At the word Dawn clapped the gag, which he had meantime improvised, between the teeth of the captive and secured it firmly.

“Now,” said Ronicky, “run for it!”

And he darted through the door, followed at his heels by the older man. Half the distance to the trees they had covered with flying haste when there was a yell behind them — a yell from Silas Treat, who had so quickly worked out the gag that silenced him. Then — he must have burst the cords that held him by an exertion of his tremendous strength and scooped up a fallen revolver — a storm of bullets was driven after the fugitives.

But the distance was great, and Ronicky set the example of dodging from side to side as he ran. In a moment, though, the bullets still whistling and crashing through the boughs around them, Ronicky had reached the safety of the forest and turned panting to Dawn.

“Safe?” he asked.

“Thank Heaven! And you, Ronicky?”

“Make for the hosses. Get two and come back. I’ll keep ‘em dancing to our music while you get ‘em!”

Dawn disappeared, and Ronicky faced the enemy. There was a new confusion of shouts. The enormous voice of Silas Treat was giving directions. The rest of Moon’s shattered crew was coming to the firing line, and a scattering of shots was pumped toward the place where Ronicky had disappeared. He must give them the opinion that he and Dawn were preparing to make at least a short stand in this direction. Accordingly, he began to run from tree to tree, firing two shots in quick succession and then two more from another place, so as to give the effect of a pair of fighters working along the edge of the forest. He was aiming at the flashes on the far side of the clearing, but he had no hope of striking a target, and he was not surprised when no cries of pain greeted his attack. In a moment they would send a couple of men sifting around the edge of the clearing to make a flank attack, but now came Hugh Dawn leading one horse and riding another. One bound carried Ronicky into the saddle, and he and Dawn spurred recklessly into the heart of the woods.

Behind them rose fresh yells of dismay, and the firing ceased. Of course they would pursue, but unless Ronicky were hugely mistaken, they would not pursue far through the darkness of the woods. Dawn was indeed beginning in the east, but the pines were thick enough to shut out the scattered rays of light and leave deep night beneath the lower branches.

And to follow an armed enemy who had proved the sharpness of his teeth through such a thicket as this would probably overtask the worn nerves of the outlaws. Besides, he shrewdly guessed that they had had enough of fighting to last them for many days.

Another interest was larger in the mind of Ronicky. He plunged with Hugh Dawn straight up the slope until he came to the clearing where Treat had said Jack Moon had last gone with the girl.

It was quite empty, as he broke into the open space with his revolver poised. Drawing up his horse with a groan, he cried to Dawn: “Treat was right. The devil has taken Jerry.”

“Ay,” said the despairing father, “devil he is and doubly a devil, but well never get him tonight, Ronicky. He’s taken the grays. I seen that they weren’t among the rest of the hosses, though I looked for ‘em. On the grays he’ll shake his heels in our faces, lad, or the faces of any hosses in these parts. They’ve got the foot. We can’t catch ‘em!”

For answer Ronicky looked a moment in silence at his companion and then whistled a peculiarly high and piercing note, long held. Then he sat with his head canted a little to one side, listening intently.

“How come?” growled Hugh Dawn uneasily. “Calling up Moon’s gang of cutthroats?”

But far away, faint as a small echo, the answer came in the form of a neigh. Ronicky smiled and shook his head at his companion.

“You hear?”

“It’s Lou,” said the other, a little awed. “She’s like a man for sense, Ronicky.”

“Better’n most men,” answered Ronicky tersely and whistled again.

The answer this time was much closer. Then they heard a crashing in the underbrush, and the beautiful mare came like a bullet out of the trees and glinted in the dawnlight of the clearing. Beside Ronicky she drew up, snorting her pleasure at the reunion.

A change of saddles was quickly made, and now, on the back of the mare, Ronicky laughed with joy.

“Now let Jack Moon ride hard,” he said, “because, no matter how much foot the grays have, I’m going to run ‘em into the ground — if I can ever pick up the trail. But Lord knows where they’ve gone. Can you guess, Hugh?”

“Can’t make a good guess,” the older man returned, watching with an appreciative eye while the bay mare danced in her eagerness to be off. “But how’m I to keep up with that little streak of lightning you’re on now?”

“You won’t keep up,” answered Ronicky. “Never come across a hoss in the mountains that could keep up, partner.”

Now the gray morning was brightening each moment, and already the light was so clear that they could look back into the heart of the hollow and see the clearing and the shacks. There was no pursuit apparently. Small figures of men moved here and there hurriedly. There was a knot of horses, looking as small as ants in the distance, in the central space.

“I knew,” muttered Ronicky Doone, “that there was a curse on that treasure of Cosslett’s. We ain’t the men that dug the stuff out of the ground in the first place, and neither did they give it to us. Hugh, they’s going to be a curse wherever that gold travels!”

“I got none of it,” said Hugh Dawn almost cheerfully. “Left it all behind in the shack. And I think you’re right, Ronicky. But now where do we head?”

“We can only guess. Where would a smart gent like Jack Moon go if he wanted to throw folks off the trail?”

“North was where he and the band expected to head.”

“That’s why he won’t head there. And over to the east the ground slopes too easy and smooth. That’s where folks would naturally think that Moon had gone trying to get away. But most like, just to throw us off, Moon has taken the west road, through those hills. The harder the road, the less chance we’d have to foller him on it. Ain’t that the way he’d think?”

“I dunno, Ronicky. But it sounds pretty reasonable, except that for my part I’d take the east road. That’s where he must of gone.”

“Take it if you want. I go west.”

“Take it, then. We’ll each try a road. And if we both miss?”

“I’ll see you in Trainor — if I come through alive.”

“Good-by, Ronicky — and Heaven bless you!”

Ronicky Doone waved his hand cheerfully.

“You look happy,” said the older man curiously, “like you was going to a party, son!”

“I am,” said Ronicky Doone. “I’m going on the trail of the gent I’d rather meet than anybody in the world. Good luck, Hugh!”

Hugh Dawn waved again and then watched Ronicky send his mare at a gallop down through the sparsely wooded slope leading toward the west. He kept on watching as the rider disappeared in the thicket in the lower hollow, and until Ronicky came into view again on the farther slope. He was still allowing Lou to keep a swift pace, and he was riding jauntily erect, as though he rode to a feast.

Then Hugh Dawn turned his face east and trotted down through the trees.