Ronicky Doone's Treasure (1922) Read Online Free PDF

on it! Jump out of this house, saddle your hoss, and ride! Because Moon's coming!"
    There was such honest eagerness in his voice that Hugh Dawn started as though to execute the suggestion. He only hesitated to say: "How come you to do all this riding and talking for me? What d'you get out of it? What am I to you?"
    "You're a gent with four crooks on your heels," said Ronicky calmly. "I heard them talk. I couldn't let a murder be done if I could keep you from it. That's why I'm here."
    The other shook his head. But the girl cried: "Don't you see, dad? He's simply white! For Heaven's sake, believe him trust in my trust. Get your things together. I'll saddle the gray and "
    The storm of her excited belief swept the other off his feet. He flashed one glance at Ronicky Doone, then turned on his heel and ran for his room.
    The girl raced the other way, clattering down the stairs. Perhaps when she sprang outside into the night Jack Moon and his men would already be there. But she had never a thought for danger.
    Ronicky Doone only delayed to run into the front room on that floor the room from which the girl had spoken to him when he tried the front door and there he lighted the lamp and placed it on the table near the window. After that he sped down the stairs, untethered Lou from her tree at the side of the house, and hurried with her to the back of the house and the old, tumble-down horseshed which stood there.
    Lantern light showed there, where the girl was saddling a tall, gray gelding. She was working the cinch knots tight as Ronicky appeared, so fast had been her work, and now her father came from the house at a run, huddling himself into his slicker.
    "How could they find out that I come here?" he asked. "After ten years!"
    "No time for questions," his daughter said, panting. "Oh, dad, for Heaven's sake use the spurs tonight. Go back. Never return!"
    "And leave you here alone?" asked Ronicky sternly. "Not when Moon and his gang are on the way. I seen their faces, lady, and they ain't a pretty lot! Leave you to be found by them? Not in a thousand years."
    She grew a little pale at that, but she still kept her head high. "I've nothing to fear," she said. "They wouldn't dare harm me."
    "I'll trust 'em dead, not living," said Ronicky. "You're going to ride with your father and on that hoss yonder!"
    There was a companion to the gray, hardly so tall, but even better formed.
    "He's right," said Hugh Dawn. As he spoke he caught saddle and bridle from their hooks and slapped them onto the horse. "I ain't thinking right tonight. I ain't understanding things. Doone, you put shame on me! Of course I ain't going to leave her alone!"
    Ronicky heard these remarks with only half an ear.
    He called from the door of the shed, where he had taken his stand: "Now put out the lantern! No use calling them this way with a light!"
    He was hastily obeyed. Through the darkness they led out the two grays beside Lou.
    "And you, Doone," said Hugh Dawn, who seemed to have been recovering his poise rapidly during the past seconds, "ride down the east road. We'll go over the hills. Tomorrow Jerry can come back, when it's safe. And Doone, shake hands! I forgive that punch that knocked me cold. Some day we "
    "Shut up," whispered Ronicky Doone impolitely and with savage force. "There they come!"
    Four ghostly, silent figures, stooping low, advancing with stealthy stride, came out of the pines and slid toward the house. They could not be distinguished individually. They were simply blurs in the mist of rainfall, but for some reason their very obscurity made them more significant, more formidable. Ronicky Doone heard a queer, choked sound Hugh Dawn swallowing a horror that would not down.
    "And and I near stayed there in the house and waited for this!" he breathed.
    Ronicky Doone jerked up a threatening fist. Not that there was a real danger that they might be overheard at that distance, but because he had odd superstitions tucked away in him here and there, and