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

one of those superstitions was that words were more than mere sounds. They were thoughts that went abroad in an electric medium and possessed a life of their own. They might dart across a great space, these things called words. They might enter the minds and souls of men to whom they were not addressed. The idea had grown up in Ronicky Doone during long periods of silence in the mountains, in the desert where silence itself is a voice.
    That raised fist brought the hunted man's teeth together with a snap. Then the gesture of Ronicky commanded them to go forward, on foot, leading their horses. He himself went last and acted as the rear guard while they trudged out past the horse-shed blessing the double night of its shadow! and up the grade, then swerving around among the trees on the narrow uptrail which would eventually take them over the hills. They came even with the side of the house.
    "Good Lord!" breathed Dawn. "They sure ain't got up that high already but they's a light in the front room your room, Jerry!"
    "I left that lamp," Ronicky Doone told them, grinning. "I thought it'd keep 'em nice and quiet for a while and make 'em sneak up to that door slow and easy, slow and easy then pop! wide goes the door, and they run in and find nothing!"
    He laughed fiercely, silently no sound coming save the light catching of his breath.
    "You got a brain," said the rescued man.
    "Heaven bless you!" whispered his daughter.
    "We can climb the hosses now," said Ronicky, who seemed to have been admitted into the post of commander. "No danger of being seen. But ride slow. Things that move fast are seen a pile quicker than things that stand still. Now!"
    He gave the example of swinging into the saddle on Lou. The girl, as she imitated, went up lightly as a feather, but Hugh Dawn's great bulk brought a loud grunt from the gray he bestrode, and the three sat a moment, straining in fear. But there was no sound. The four shadows had melted into the greater shadow of the house.
    They began at a walk. They climbed higher on the swinging trail among the trees until they were above another eminence and looked down. The house seemed as near as ever, the trail had zigzagged so much to make the altitude. They could see the front of the building clearly, and suddenly the light wobbled, flashed to the side, and almost went out; then it grew dimmer in the center of the apartment.
    "They've found out the trick," said Ronicky Doone, speaking in a natural voice and chuckling.
    "Hush!" panted the girl.
    "We can talk out now, long's we don't do no shouting. They've sprung the trap, and they've got nothing! Not a thing!" He laughed again.
    "Thanks to you, partner," said Hugh Dawn. "Thanks to you, lad!" There was a ring to his low voice.
    The girl added a pleasant grace note to what her father had said: "To think," she said, "that when you spoke from the door such a little time ago! I was paralyzed with fear. I thought you were they. I thought they had come for dad! And well, every day that he lives from now on, is a day due to you, Mr. Doone; and he will never forget. I will never forget."
    For some reason that assurance that she would never forget meant more to Ronicky Doone than any assurance from the grown man.
    "Look here," he said, "you don't owe nothing to me. It's Lou that done it. It's Lou that outfooted their hosses and give me the half hour's head start. She piled that up inside of twenty miles' running, too, and after she'd gone a weary way yesterday. Yep, if you got anything to thank, it's Lou. Me, I just done what anybody'd do. I'll leave you folks here," he added, as he got to the top of the crest of the hills with them.
    "Leave us? Oh, no!" cried the girl and added hastily: "But of course. You see, I forget, Mr. Doone. It seems that so many things have happened to the three of us tonight that we are all bound together."
    "I wish we were," said Hugh Dawn. "But you got your business, lad. Besides, I bring bad luck. Stay clear of me, or you'll