"I can," rejoins the a.s.sa.s.sin, heaving a sigh of relief.

"All right, then," resumes Borla.s.se; "we understand one another. But it won't do to stay palaverin hyar any longer. Let's go up to my bedroom.

We'll be safe there; and I've got a bottle of whisky, the best stuff for a nightcap. Over that we can talk things straight, without any one havin' the chance to set them crooked. Come along!"

Darke, without protest, accepts the invitation. He dares not do otherwise. It sounds more like a command. The man extending it has now full control over him; can deliver him to justice--have him dragged to a jail.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

"WILL YOU BE ONE OF US?"

Once inside his sleeping apartment, Borla.s.se shuts the door, points out a chair to his invited guest, and plants himself upon another. With the promised bottle of whisky between them, he resumes speech.

"I've asked you, Quantrell, to be one o' us. I've done it for your own good, as you ought to know without my tellin' ye. Well; you asked me in return what that means?"

"Yes, I did," rejoins Darke, speaking without purpose.

"It means, then," continues Borla.s.se, taking a gulp out of his gla.s.s, "that me, an' the others you've been drinking with, air as good a set of fellows as ever lived. That we're a cheerful party, you've seen for yourself. What's pa.s.sed this night ain't nowheres to the merry times we spend upon the prairies out in Texas--for it's in Texas we live."

"May I ask, Mr Borla.s.se, what business you follow?"

"Well; when we're engaged in regular business, it's mostly horse-catchin'. We rope wild horses, _mustangs_, as they're called; an'

sometimes them that ain't jest so wild. We bring 'em into the settlements for sale. For which reason we pa.s.s by the name of _mustangers_. Between whiles, when business isn't very brisk, we spend our time in some of the Texas towns--them what's well in to'rds the Rio Grande, whar there's a good sprinklin' of Mexikins in the population.

We've some rare times among the Mexikin girls, I kin a.s.sure you. You'll take Jim Borla.s.se's word for that, won't you?"

"I have no cause to doubt it."

"Well, I needn't say more, need I? I know, Quantrell, you're fond of a pretty face yourself, with sloe-black eyes in it. You'll see them among the Mexikin saynoritas, to your heart's content. Enough o' 'em, maybe, to make you forget the pair as war late glancin' at you out of the hotel gallery."

"Glancing at me?" exclaims Darke, showing surprise, not unmixed with alarm.

"Glancing at ye; strait custrut; them same eyes as inspired ye to do that little bit of shootin', wi' Charley Clancy for a target."

"You think she _saw_ me?" asks the a.s.sa.s.sin, with increasing uneasiness.

"Think! I'm sure of it. More than saw--she recognised ye. I could tell that from the way she shot back into the shadow. Did ye not notice it yourself?"

"No," rejoins Darke, the monosyllable issuing mechanically from his lips, while a shiver runs through his frame.

His questioner, observing these signs, continues,--

"T'ike my advice, and come with us fellows to Texas. Before you're long there, the Mexikin girls will make you stop moping about Miss Armstrong.

After the first _fandango_ you've been at, you won't care a straw for her. Believe me, you'll soon forget her."

"Never!" exclaims Darke, in the fervour of his pa.s.sion--thwarted though it has been--forgetting the danger he is in.

"If that's your detarmination," returns Borla.s.se, "an' you've made up your mind to keep that sweetheart in sight, you won't be likely to live long. As sure as you're sittin' thar, afore breakfast time to-morrow mornin' the town of Naketosh 'll be too hot to hold ye."

Darke starts from his chair, as if _it_ had become too hot.

"Keep cool, Quantrell!" counsels the Texan. "No need for ye to be scared at what I'm sayin'. Thar's no great danger jest yet. There might be, if you were in that chair, or this room, eight hours later. I won't be myself, not one. For I may as well tell ye, that Jim Borla.s.se, same's yourself, has reasons for shiftin' quarters from the Choctaw Chief. And so, too, some o' the fellows we've been drinkin' with.

We'll all be out o' this a good hour afore sun-up. Take a friend's advice, and make tracks along wi' us. Will you?"

Darke still hesitates to give an affirmative answer. His love for Helen Armstrong--wild, wanton pa.s.sion though it be--is the controlling influence of his life. It has influenced him to follow her thus far, almost as much as the hope of escaping punishment for his crime. And though knowing, that the officers of justice are after him, he clings to the spot where she is staying, with that fascination which keeps the fox by the kennel holding the hounds. The thought of leaving her behind-- perhaps never to see her again--is more repugnant than the spectre of a scaffold!

The Texan guesses the reason of his irresolution. More than this, he knows he has the means to put an end to it. A word will be sufficient; or, at most, a single speech. He puts it thus--

"If you're detarmined to stick by the ap.r.o.n-strings o' Miss Armstrong, you'll not do that by staying here in Naketosh. Your best place, to be _near her_, will be along _with me_."

"How so, Mr Borla.s.se?" questions Darke, his eyes opening to a new light. "Why do you say that?"

"You ought to know, without my tellin' you--a man of your 'cuteness, Quantrell! You say you can never forget the older of that pair o'

girls. I believe you; and will be candid, too, in sayin', no more is Jim Borla.s.se like to forget the younger. I thought nothin' could 'a fetched that soft feelin' over me. 'Twant likely, after what I've gone through in my time. But she's done it--them blue eyes of hers; hanged if they hain't! Then, do you suppose that I'm going to run away from, and lose sight o' her and them? _No_; not till I've had her within these arms, and tears out o' them same peepers droppin' on my cheeks.

That is, if she take it in the weepin' way."

"I don't understand," stammers Darke.

"You will in time," rejoins the ruffian; "that is, if you become one o'

us, and go where we're a-goin'. Enough now for you to be told that, _there you will find your sweetheart_!"

Without waiting to watch the effect of his last words, the tempter continues--

"Now, Phil Quantrell, or d.i.c.k Darke, as in confidence I may call ye, are you willin' to be one o' us?"

"I am."

"Good! That's settled. An' your comrade, Harkness; I take it, he'll go, too, when told o' the danger of staying behind; not that he appears o' much account, anyway. Still, among us _mustangers_, the more the merrier; and, sometimes we need numbers to help in the surroundin' o'

the horses. He'll go along, won't he?"

"Anywhere, with me."

"Well, then, you'd better step into his bedroom, and roust him up. Both of ye must be ready at once. Slip out to the stable, an' see to the saddles of your horses. You needn't trouble about settlin' the tavern bill. That's all scored to me; we kin fix the proportions of it afterward. Now, Quantrell, look sharp; in twenty minutes, time, I expect to find you an' Harkness in the saddle, where you'll see ten o'

us others the same."

Saying this, the Texan strides out into the corridor, Darke preceding him. In the dimly-lighted pa.s.sage they part company, Borla.s.se opening door after door of several bedrooms, ranged on both sides of it; into each, speaking a word, which, though only in whisper, seems to awake a sleeper as if a cannon were discharged close to his ears. Then succeeds a general shuffling, as of men hastily putting on coats and boots, with an occasional grunt of discontent at slumber disturbed; but neither talking nor angry protest. Soon, one after another, is seen issuing forth from his sleeping apartment, skulking along the corridor, out through the entrance door at back, and on towards the stable.

Presently, they fetch their horses forth, saddled and bridled. Then, leaping upon their backs, ride silently off under the shadow of the trees; Borla.s.se at their head, Quantrell by his side, Harkness among those behind.

Almost instantly they are in the thick forest which comes close up to the suburbs of Natchitoches; the Choctaw Chief standing among trees never planted by the hand of man.

The wholesale departure appearing surrept.i.tious, is not un.o.bserved.

Both the tavern Boniface and his bar-keeper witness it, standing in the door as their guests go off; the landlord chuckling at the large pile of glittering coins left behind; Johnny scratching his carroty poll, and saying,--

"Be j.a.pers! they intind clearin' that fellow Quantrell out. He won't long be throubled wid that shinin' stuff as seems burnin' the bottom out av his pocket. I wudn't be surrprized if they putt both him an' 'tother fool past tillin' tales afore ayther sees sun. Will, boss, it's no bizness av ours."

With this self-consolatory remark, to which the "boss" a.s.sents, Johnny proceeds to shut and lock the tavern door. Soon after the windows of the Choctaw Chief show lightless, its interior silent, the moonbeams shining upon its shingled roof peacefully and innocently, as though it had never sheltered robber, and drunken talk or ribald blasphemy been heard under it.

So, till morning's dawn; till daylight; till the sun is o'ertopping the trees. Then is it surrounded by angry men; its wooden walls re-echoing their demand for admittance.