Cross and dispirited he entered the hotel and mounted to his room. He was beginning to hate it, its hideous hotel furniture, the memory of hours of ennui spent there. Against his doorsill the evening paper lay, and picking it up he let himself in and lighted the gas. On the mantel the small nickel clock seemed to start out at him, insolently proclaiming the hour, half past seven. He groaned in desperation and cast the paper on the table. It had been folded once over, and as it struck the marble, fell open. Across the front page in glaring black letters he read the words,
"Knapp, the bandit, caught at Sheeps Bar."
CHAPTER XVI
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
That night Mayer could not sleep. He kept assuring himself there was nothing to fear, yet he did fear. Dark possibilities rose on his imagination—in his excitement at finding the treasure he might have left something, some betraying mark or object. Was there any way in which the bandits could have obtained a clew to his identity; could they have guessed, or discovered by some underground channel of espionage, that he was the man who had robbed them? Over and over he told himself it was impossible, but he could not lift from his spirit a dread that made him toss in restless torment. With the daylight, his nerves steadied, and a perusal of the morning papers still further calmed him. Only one man had been caught—Knapp. Garland had broken through the window, and with the darkness and his knowledge of the country to aid him, had made his escape. The sheriff's bullet had not done its work; no man seriously wounded could have eluded the speed and vigilance of the pursuit. A posse was now out beating the hills, but with the long stretch of night in his favor he had slipped through their fingers and was safe somewhere in the chaparral or the mountains beyond. If his friends could not help him, a force more implacable than sheriff or deputy would bring him to justice: hunger.
The paper minutely described Knapp—young, thirty he said, a giant in strength, and apparently simple and dull-witted. The game up, he accepted the situation stoically and was ready to tell all he knew. Then followed a summary of his career, his meeting with Garland six years before and their joint activities. Of his partner's life where it did not touch his he had no information to give. They met up at intervals, planned their raids, executed them and then separated. He knew of Garland by no other name, had no knowledge of his habitats or of what friends he had among the ranchers and townspeople. His description of the elder man was meager; all he seemed sure of was that Garland had once been a miner, that he wanted to quit "the road," and that he was middle-aged, somewhere around forty-five or it might be even fifty. Hop Sing, the Chinaman, was equally in the dark as to the man who, the papers decided, had been the brains of the combination. The restaurant keeper had merely been a humble instrument in his strong and unscrupulous hand.
So far there was no mention of the cache in the tules. The reporters, spilled out in the damp discomfort of the county seat, were filling their columns with anything they could scrape together, but it was still too early for them to have scraped more than the obvious, surface facts. Mayer would have to wait. As he sat at the table, picking at his breakfast, his mind darkly disturbed, he wondered if he had not better get out, and then called himself a fool. He was secure, absolutely secure. The man of the two who had had some capacity had escaped, and if he had had the capacity of Napoleon how could he possibly have anything to say that would involve Boyé Mayer?
So he soothed himself and, braced by a cup of coffee and a cold bath, began to feel at ease. But he decided to keep to his room till he knew more. If anything should happen he could break away quickly and he felt safer under cover. Now, more than ever, he feared the eyes of honest men.
He had reached this decision when he suddenly remembered Pancha. The thought of her came with an impact, causing him to stiffen and give forth a low ejaculation. His mind ran with lightning speed over what he had been reading, then flashed back to her. Was this man, this hulking country Hercules, her "best beau," or was it the other one, Garland, the one who had the brains, and who was old? It was more likely Knapp. He could have come to the city, seen her play, been inspired by a passion that made him daring, been her choice till Mayer had come and conquered.
Her place in the affair, overlooked in the first shock of his own alarms, rose before him, formidable and threatening. A desire to see her, deeper than any he had yet experienced, seized him. Her guard would be down; with all her sly skill she could not deceive him now. She would be frightened, she was in danger, she would betray herself. Even if she had long ceased to care for the man, she might have some fears for him, and how much more fears for herself? As he realized the perils of her position, a faint, slow smile curved his lips. It was not of derision but of a cynical comprehension. He saw her scared to the soul, scared of discovery as Knapp's girl, who was aware of his business, who kept tab on his comings and goings. For all anyone knew some of that money of hers, so thriftily hoarded, might be part of the bandit's unlawful gains.