Chapter XIV.
"PRINCE CHARMING."
"Can't we take a couple of shots at the guy?" implored John, casting yearning glances in the direction of the furiously riding horseman.
But before his chief could reply, Susie exclaimed:
"No, please say no, Jesse. We've—ugh!—seen enough shooting tonight," and she turned her large eyes, full of pleading, upon her brother.
"As you say, sis," returned he, good-naturedly. "The ladies are in command now, John, so I can't allow you to fire at the wretch, though it does seem a shame not to give him a couple of bullets to hurry him a bit."
Susie, however, was deaf to supplication and with a sigh the outlaws turned their backs upon the lone rider.
"Are you going to leave those—er—men?" inquired Marjorie, as Jesse and his companions dismounted to look to the cinches of their saddles.
"We are," returned the bandit-chieftain with an emphasis that warned the others that he had yielded to their demands as far as he would. "They'll serve as a warning that my family and friends are not to be trifled with."
Then dropping his harsh tone, he inquired: "Where were you-all bound for when this interruption occurred?"
"To my aunt, Mrs. Jarvis, in Deepwater," answered Tim.
"Good. The girls ought certainly to be secure from annoyance with any of your family, who'd never be suspected of harbouring the Jameses or their friends. I rather think you girls had better stay there for a few days till things get quieter. There's liable to be something happen in course of forty-eight hours or so."
"Oh, Jess, why can't you be satisfied with getting away?" besought his sister, only to be silenced by his retort:
"Just mind your own affairs, little girl. There are a good many things you don't understand so don't bother your head about them. You'll have enough to think of—and more—with silks and ribbons and all the rest. For now that you and Tim have tried to steal a march on me once, the sooner you are married the less likely you'll be to attempt it again."
Their thoughts distracted from their nerve-racking experience through which they had passed by the reference to the nuptials, Susie and the girls, with women's interest in such events, fell to discussing the clothes that would be necessary and, smiling indulgently at their innocent prattle, the desperadoes ordered them to advance and rode along in their rear.
In apparent forgetfulness of the presence of the men who were so feared, Susie and her friends proceeded for miles before they noticed that they were following.
"Why, Jess," exclaimed Marjorie, happening to look back over her shoulder, "I didn't know you had come with us. Aren't we taking you out of your way?"
"Never mind about that," rejoined the world-famous desperado. "It's a good twenty miles from here to Deepwater and lots of things could happen before you got there, so many that I don't propose to risk your going alone. But if you want to do me a favour, will you ride faster and keep quiet? There's no telling who's abroad."
Recalled to the reality of the danger they were running in traveling at night when the whole section of the state was supposed to be searching high and low for the dread Jesse and his companions, the little troop rode on in silence.
As they approached a dark place in the highway the bandit-chieftain and John galloped ahead to draw the fire, in case any patrols were in ambush, while Cole and Jim guarded the rear. Villages and towns were given a wide berth, the cavalcade making a wide detour around them, even avoiding clusters of farm houses in their anxiety not to arouse any dogs which might give the alarm and enable the course of the fugitives to be traced.
At last, as the sky was growing green with the first tinge of the coming day, the spires of Deepwater came in sight, their white sides looking like spectres hovering between heaven and earth.
As they approached the town, the crowing of the cocks announced the wakening life.
"I don't believe we'll go any farther," declared Jesse, calling a halt on the outskirts of the village. "No one will interfere with you now and if any body should, you can say you're guests of Mrs. Jarvis out for an early ride. Tim knows how to work the bluff. I think you'd best get back to Kearney this morning, boy. You can explain to mother about Sue's trip to Monegaw Springs and tell her that it's all right for I've given my consent. When you've eased her mind, you come back here. Oh, you might tell her I'm going on a business trip to Ste. Genevieve and that I'll run in to see her on my way back. Say that Frank and Texas have gone north on a surveying expedition to be gone several weeks. If she, or any of you, have anything important to communicate to me, you can meet me in the old wood-chopper's camp at Sni Mills in five weeks.
"Take care of yourselves, now."
And touching his lips to his sister's forehead, the dare-devil bandit turned, caught Marjorie around the waist and planted a resounding smack on her luscious mouth, repeated the salute on Helen and cantered away, laughing gaily, before the blushing girls could remonstrate.
The deviation from his course across the state, necessitated by the escorting of his sister and friends to their destination, was little to the taste of the world-famous desperado, though he concealed his feelings from Susie and the girls.
But once clear of them, he rode like mad to recover the lost ground.
His hope of success in looting the bank lay in striking before the man-hunters should discover that he had left the region of Monegaw Springs and in his race against time, every hour was precious.
Keeping to the highway till it grew so light they feared discovery, the outlaws finally rode into the woods and when they reached a well-sheltered ravine, dismounted to rest their horses.
Though Cole and Jesse had left their false beards in the little ham-chamber in the chimney of the Prior house, where they had suffered such agony, they still wore their business suits they had donned in McAlester, in the Indian Territory, before going to the Springs.
John and Jim, however, were clad in the cowboy garb the bandits affected. "Wouldn't it be best for us to shift back into our 'Wild West' togs?" suggested the eldest of the Younger brothers as he noted the incongruity in the appearance of the company. "If anybody should see us, they'd sure be likely to notice us with two of us all rigged out to kill and the others not."
"I reckon it would be a good idea," returned his chief. "The people at the farmhouse didn't seem to notice that our faces were smooth, at least they didn't raise any yell about it, and they probably would have if they'd caught on to the fact, so we'll have a better chance of getting by in our usual costume."
Little time did it take the bandits to change but they carefully folded the suits they took off and put them into their saddle bags for future emergencies.
Their horses refreshed by the rest and the grass they had cropped, Jesse gave the word to re-saddle and mount and they resumed their cross-state ride.
Throughout the day they advanced, picking their course through the woods, till along toward dusk their hunger decided them to halt near a farmhouse where they determined to secure some food.
Leaving Cole with John to guard the horses, that the more experienced man might steady the lad and parry any pertinent questions should any inquisitive countryman stumble upon them, the bandit-chieftain and Jim started for the house.
Keeping under cover of the bushes till they reached the road, they scanned the buildings closely as they approached.
The unpainted boards, made grey by exposure to wind and rain, bespoke the occupants as not overburdened with worldly goods. The roof of a shed running from the house to the barn was sadly in the need of repair, giving evidence of being on the verge of collapsing, and as they turned into the yard a litter of pails, broken-down wagons and all sorts of old rubbish suggested that the inmates were shiftless as well as poor.
"Not very inviting," commented John, taking in the surroundings.
"You can't always judge by appearances," returned his chief.
And as the door was opened in response to his rap, his companion conceded that he was right.
Looking at them with frightened eyes was a girl of possibly twenty years, her beauty in startling contrast to the ragged calico wrapper in which she was clad.
A mass of Titian hair, glorious despite its disorder, crowned a face exquisite in its fine moulding and delicate colouring.
Her eyes, blue and innocent as a babe's, alone bore trace of the poverty and want her environment proclaimed.
Blushing at the frank admiration in the faces of the men before her, the girl seemed to realize the incongruity of her appearance and in a tone of resentment demanded:
"What do you want?"
"We should like to get something to eat, if you will sell it to us," replied the bandit-chieftain.
"Food? You come here for food?" exclaimed the creature, and then burst into a laugh, awful in its bitterness.
Surprised at her action, Jesse was about to speak when she went on:
"We haven't enough for ourselves, let alone strangers. There's nothing in the house but a little corn meal. Ma's in bed with a fever, baby's ailing and they took our cow away from us today."
Then, as though ashamed for her rancor, she added: "But if we had anything you'd be welcome."
His big heart ever warm for those in distress, as he heard of the tribulations besetting the fair girl and her family, the world-famous desperado became interested and when the loss of the cow was disclosed, he uttered an ejaculation of anger that anyone should be so cruel.
Something of what was passing through his mind showed in his eyes and instead of closing the door, as she started to do, the girl looked at him eagerly.
"Where are the men folks?" he asked.
Wincing as though she had been struck with a lash, the beauty drew back.
"I beg pardon," hastily continued Jesse. "I didn't mean to add to your anguish. I fancy I understand about them."
And the relief that his words brought to the blue eyes was ample reward to the bandit-chieftain and he continued: "How would it be if we should buy some food at the village, would you cook it for us? We'll pay you for your trouble."
Scarce believing her ears, the girl looked at the outlaws as though they were genii sprung from the earth, then exclaimed:
"I'll ask Ma. Won't you come in? You'll have to excuse the looks of the house but I haven't felt much like tidying up."
Accepting the invitation eagerly, in the hope that he might get a glimpse of the fever-stricken woman and the infant, Jesse entered.
But the sight that greeted his eyes made the yard seem clean and well-kept, in comparison.
On one side of the room, which served as kitchen and bed-chamber, stretched on a pallet of straw, lay a grey-haired woman, her thin face and flushed cheeks evidencing all too clearly the ravages of the malady with which she was afflicted.
And resting in the crook of an emaciated arm lay a baby, fussing and whimpering, now and then crying:
"Mik. I wan' my mik."
In his interest in the twain on the sorry bed, the world-famous desperado was oblivious to the rags, dishes, broken chairs and battered stove that formed the rest of the furnishings.
"These men want to know if I'll cook 'em something to eat if they'll buy it," announced the girl, dropping to her knees that she might speak in the woman's ear.
"Law, child, I don' believe the stove'll draw," replied her mother, when she understood the reason for the strangers' presence.
"Then we'll get food that won't need cooking," returned Jesse.
"You'll have to speak louder, Ma's deaf," declared her daughter.
"Well, you kin do as you please," rejoined the sick creature. "It may draw and it may not."
"We'll take the chance," asserted the bandit-chieftain. "Jim, you and Miss—"
"Shaw, Daisy Shaw," supplied the girl.
"You and Miss Shaw make out a list of what she needs at the store while I see if I can't make her mother a bit easier." And kneeling beside the bed of straw, he took out his medicine case with its wonderful salves and lotions.
In reply to his questions, the bandit-chieftain learned that the woman had been tossing with the fever for more than a week, though not till the desertion of her husband and son, two days before, had it become virulent.
The mention of the faithless scoundrel who had left her in want and misery threw her into wild ravings.
"Does she have these spells often?" asked the great outlaw as he hastily produced an opiate from his case.
"Most of the time. Oh, she takes on awful!" returned the girl whose status as wife of the runaway son or sister, the bandits had not yet ascertained.
But it was one thing to prepare the narcotic and another to administer it.
At first the woman would not listen to the suggestion, protesting that Jesse was but some miserable tool of her husband, sent by him to poison her. And it required the combined efforts of the three to reassure her. So weak was she from lack of nourishment and the ravages of the fever that when she did swallow it the effect was almost instantaneous, however.
By the time her mother was wrapped in the first sleep since her abandonment by her husband, Daisy and Jim had completed the list.
"Have you thought of everything?" smiled Jesse as he noted the look of fearsome eagerness on her face as she handed him the slip.
"That will do for the present," she replied, relieved that the number of the wants had not appalled their benefactor.
"But there's not enough to last two days," protested the famous desperado, glancing through the items. "Jim, go to the store—Miss Shaw will direct you how to reach it, and order three times the amount she's put down. Get a barrel of flour and a barrel of sugar, too. Have someone drive the stuff back with you. Now hurry, I'm hungry."
As his chum picked up his hat and departed, after receiving the necessary instructions to reach the store. Daisy tried to thank the generous stranger, but with a laugh, Jesse begged her not to mention it and distracted her attention from his largess by suggesting that she bathe her mother in a lotion he took from his medicine case.
"She isn't my real mother," confided the girl, "only my mother-in-law. I married Tom in New Orleans. He was a horse jockey at the time. But he got to drinking, lost his job and we drifted up here—and now he's left me."
"Good riddance, I should say," snapped Jesse. And by dint of clever questioning, he drew from the girl the whole sad story of deception and disgrace to which she and the sick woman had been brought by the worthless father and son whose disappearance was due to some transgression of the law.
His sympathy aroused, the famous desperado asked about the cow, learning that she had been taken for a mortgage which was not due for three days. Having a chance to sell her and believing that the deserted woman could never raise the amount loaned, the hardhearted farmer had driven the animal away.
Boiling with indignation at the injustice, Jesse demanded the man's name.
"He's Hiram Rozier and he's awful rich," answered Daisy.
"I wonder if he is any relation to the Roziers in Ste. Genevieve?" hazarded the bandit-chieftain.
"He has a brother who's president of or owns a bank."
"Ha! He is one of that tribe, eh?" hissed Jesse.
"I'll pay him a visit before I leave this town. You'll either have your cow back or another in its place."
Something in the tone in which her "Prince Charming" uttered the promise made Daisy look at him and the expression she saw on his face caused her to shrink from him in terror.
But his paroxysm of rage lasted only a moment and when Jim returned with the groceries and provisions half an hour later, they were laughing and joking as they struggled to make the battered stove do its duty.
When the supplies had been transferred from the wagon to the house, Jesse bade his chum wait upon the girl while he transacted a little business and without giving either Daisy or Jim a chance to object, went from the house, jumping up beside the driver of the grocery wagon whom he ordered to drive as fast as he could to the home of Hiram Rozier.
The curiosity of the villager excited by the unheard-of order for provisions for the Shaws, the fellow sought to learn Jesse's relation to the family who were sneeringly alluded to as "poor white trash" by their more prosperous neighbours.
Deeming it advisable to offer some explanation, the world-famous desperado amused himself during the drive by unfolding a wondrous tale of a long-lost sister, stolen by gypsies when she was a tot, found in the person of Daisy Shaw.
"Here we be to Hiram's," announced the fellow, as he pulled up in front of a big white house, the blinds on the front of which were all shut tight. "Shall you want me any more?"
In the tone was a mixture of desire to impart the choice bit of gossip of the returned brother to his cronies at the store and reluctance to leave the stranger lest he miss something.
Smiling at it, Jesse replied:
"If you can, I should be obliged if you would listen to my conversation with Mr. Rozier. I may want a witness."
Here was mystery indeed—the long-lost brother of Daisy Shaw desiring a witness to a conversation with the richest man in town! And in his haste to descend from the wagon, the clerk caught his foot in the reins and would have fallen had not the bandit-chieftain caught him.
Going boldly up to the front door, his companion following at a safe distance, Jesse lifted the old fashioned brass knocker and let it fall with a resounding rap.
In a few moments shuffling steps sounded and a man, whose face, though older and topped with white locks, was a counterpart of the banker's at Monegaw Springs, opened the door, demanding gruffly:
"What do you want?"
"Is this Mr. Hiram Rozier?" asked the famous desperado.
"It is."
Assured on this point, Jesse went to the point without any preliminaries:
"You stole Mrs. Thomas Shaw's cow from her today, didn't you?"
"Stole her cow? No, sir! How dare you say such a thing?" thundered the infuriated man.
"Don't raise your voice—unless you want your neighbors to hear," retorted his interrogator, coolly. "You did steal it and you know you did! There was a mortgage on it but it wasn't due till day after tomorrow.
"I've come to take back that cow!"
Dropping his bombastic manner, Hiram Rosier whined:
"I got it in a business way. I had a chance to sell her. Mrs. Shaw couldn't pay the money even if it isn't due for three days. There's nothing wrong about the transaction. I can't afford to lose fifteen dollars and sixty cents when I—"
"Rubbish!" snapped Jesse. "Mrs. Shaw can pay the money. See, here's a twenty-dollar bill. But she won't—with my permission.
"How much did you get for the cow?"
Too amazed by such treatment to think of refusing to reply, the old man stammered:
"Forty dollars."
"Giving you a profit of practically twenty-five dollars, eh? Is that the way you made all your money, stealing food from the mouths of helpless women and children?"
"I won't listen to such abuse!" roared Hiram Rozier and he started to shut the door in the great outlaw's face.
The latter had been expecting such a move, however, and quickly reaching out his powerful right arm, seized the old man and yanked him on to the porch, hissing:
"Oh, yes you will—and more too. I want you to get on this wagon and drive with me to the man to whom you sold Mrs. Shaw's cow."
"And if I refuse?"
"I'll have you arrested for selling stolen property."
The humiliation and disgrace such a proceeding would bring upon the name of Rozier decided the old man and he rejoined:
"Wait till I get my hat."
"Oh, no you don't. Do I look like a fool enough to let you go back into the house? You put my hat on your head and come along."
Before the other could remonstrate, the world-famous desperado had jammed his sombrero upon the white locks and was dragging the old man toward the wagon.
Pinching himself to see if he were awake, the clerk followed and, when all were on the seat, drove to the house named by Mr. Rozier.
Arrived, Jesse accompanied the unwilling moneylender to the door.
When the purpose of the visit was made known, the purchaser of the cow at first refused to surrender her in return for the money he had paid, finally declaring, however, that he would part with her for fifty dollars.
Threatening to expose him should he decline to give the extra ten dollars, Jesse forced the brother of the banker to pay it and with the cow tied to the wagon, they drove back to his house.
The loss of the money rankling in his breast, as the team stopped in front of his gate, Mr. Rozier exclaimed:
"If you'll give me the amount of the mortgage, I'll have it cancelled."
"Not much," retorted the bandit-chieftain. "You'll send the paper, marked 'satisfied in full of all demands' 'round to Mrs. Shaw's tonight before nine o'clock or she'll swear out a warrant against you!"
And without giving the terrified old man the opportunity to reply, Jesse ordered the dumbfounded grocery clerk to drive on.