Three sevens A detective story

to the old horse and wagon. To some extent he remained the old-rag merchant. He was famous. Or, at least, Three Sevens was famous; and no detective, unless he possessed more than the usual lot of imagination, was going to look for Three Sevens in a business like this. All the while he came back, closer and closer, to the prison from which he and these others had escaped. Bud Gaspell made the ride in the bottom of the wagon. All of the time Bud was tied. A part of the time he was gagged. But they made it as easy as possible for him. And, at that, he was but little more uncomfortable than were George Washington and Solly Wells much of the time. For there were periods when they had to play “old rags,” too--face down in the bottom of the cart, a coverlet of old burlap over them. With a touch of poetry, a touch of symbolism, to it all--as if they were old rags, sure enough, bound for some paper mill of the gods, where they were to be made over, belike, into something clean, something new, so Craig told them. However, it may have been when he was having that fight of his with Bud Gaspell, and earlier yet, when that revolution in San Pedro was first dawning in his mind, Craig did have his flights of inspiration now. In another way than any newspaperman had ever represented, he had become a leader of men--leader of himself, for one, and of these others for the rest. He understood their waverings, their shudderings, their black haunts and sudden panics as they drew nearer and nearer to their journey’s end. He felt these things himself--down in the dark subcellar of his being--which was like the punishment block of the old San Pedro itself. For was not this where were sent the rebel thoughts, the untamable, the fierce, the blasphemous thoughts, like so many prisoners? It was why, at a little crossroads store, with San Pedro not more than ten miles away out across the arid country he remembered so well, that Craig left the camp guarded by his deputies and went to have a talk with the new warden of San Pedro by telephone. For his own part, Major Gracie also meditated. Was this a trap? He had talked to a man with a pleasant voice, a man of education, who gave his name as Daniel Craig. No, it could be no trap. Daniel Craig was suggesting that the major bring as many guards with him as the major might desire--to a certain gully not far from the prison where there were a number of stunted willow trees. What for? A conference. “About the surrender of certain fugitives,” came the explanation. “I am Daniel Craig. You have no record concerning me. I may ask you to assure these men that I am bringing with me that they’ll not be mistreated--that they’ll get a square deal.” The major was honest. Said he: “What if I should recognize you? And what if it should be my sworn duty to arrest you.” “I’ll be masked.” Everything is simple when explained--almost everything. Event follows event, like links in a chain, each event welded into the event that precedes and the link that follows. There are no sudden gaps, no miracles of results without causation. The new warden of San Pedro, with some strain of the artist in him, perhaps--that quality which gave him both a love for things as they ought to be and for the picturesque--had ordered his horse saddled, had ridden out into the sun-cooked plain that stretched from San Pedro to the south. There, on a crest of rock near his place of rendezvous, he had seen appear the single figure he was expecting; and he rode forward to meet this man with a certain tingling of admiration as well as of curiosity, although the man was masked. It was good to be young. The man of the mask was young. He must be. What older man would have undertaken this fool’s errand than he who had tried, without warrant of law, to set the wrongs of the law aright? For the major would not listen to the voice inside of him. But this voice was persistent, all the same. What it said was this: “You’re a pretty warden! Going out to meet a man with a mask on his face! And this man with a price on his head! Three Sevens!” But this inner voice of the major’s grew less insistent before very long. The warden was listening instead to the voice of this man he had come to see. This man was telling him how there was a colored man named George Washington, who was not bad at heart, only a bit undisciplined, and how George was coming back to San Pedro of his own free will because he--George--believed in prisons, when prisons were good. And, next, the man was telling about Solly Wells, who had wanted to die in the open air, but also was returning to prison because--well, maybe the law had been vindicated in Solly’s case, and there would be a pardon. And then, there was Bud Gaspell. “And how about Bud?” asked the major. He had dropped the bridle over his horse’s head, dismounted, and now he and Craig were squatted side by side in the bright sunshine like a couple of friendly rangers. Off up the gully three or four hundred yards away, only partly hidden by the stunted willow trees, the major saw an old horse hitched to an old wagon. Also the major had seen those lurking figures back of the wagon--a small man heavily bearded, a big colored man. But the major’s glance had been casual. His glance was casual now, as he glanced at the man at his side. The gray eyes were calm and bright. They gazed away. “Bud’s a hard case,” said the man who had given his name as Daniel Craig. Maybe the major was thinking of the reticences of his daughter when she had spoken of the man who had organized the San Pedro jail delivery. The major had not sought to question too far. He had faith in his daughter. He had faith in humanity in general. To the major, privately, this was Thomas Masters, late convict No. 3777. To the major, as warden of San Pedro, this man at his side was Daniel Craig, a man whom he had never heard about, a man who was innocent of all wrongdoing--even if he did have a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face. It was a confusing situation. Major Gracie solved it by sticking to the essentials of the present situation. “Bud’s a hard case,” said Craig, “but even so, I don’t believe I’d ever have brought him back if I hadn’t known that San Pedro had changed.” “It’s changed all right,” said the new warden. “That’s what I kept telling the boys, but I’m glad to hear you confirm it. That’s going to make me feel a lot better when I go about the rest of the work I have to do--which will be plenty.” “A good deal has been left to my discretion,” said the major. “I may come asking board for myself some day.” It was curious to hear them talking like this, friendly and intimate. It would have been still more curious to one who looked at them--this man with a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face seated there on the ground at the side of the governor’s friend. They talked a while about Bud. He was a hard problem as Craig had said. Bud hadn’t wanted to come back to San Pedro. It was only after long persuasion that he had confessed where he had hidden his loot from train No. 93. “And you----” “Yes, we brought that with us, too.” “And what is your idea now, Daniel Craig?” asked the major. “Well, I’ll tell you,” said Craig. “I thought that maybe you would think it a nice thing, and something in favor of these boys, if you just let them come back to San Pedro without escort--saving the State the expense of the rewards, and so forth. This is where they belong--prison’s where they do belong, but let it be somehow, as if they were coming home!” That part of it turned out as Craig and the major agreed that it should before they parted. And, somehow or other, a part of the story did leak out and get into the papers, where it was treated as bordering on the miraculous. Two of the fugitives from San Pedro, said the papers, had appeared at the prison one day bringing Bud Gaspell, the train robber, with them, and also an old horse and wagon, with Bud’s most recent loot in it. All very mysterious--and rightly so, for any one not in possession of all the facts. But, even in possession of all the facts, could one have explained that glow of excitement and pride in Joan Gracie’s heart when she heard of the adventure? Excitement and pride on her father’s account, of course. But then, why should she have ridden out into the desert space back of San Pedro, that day of her father’s conference, and gazed and gazed away into the distance? Not even she herself could have told. She was on the top of a rising bit of ground when she saw an old horse appear trailing a shaky old wagon. Driving the horse was a man who coughed. Seated in the back of the wagon was a man who seemed to have his hands tied. Back of the cart a big negro flat-footed along with a step not devoid of the singing quality of his race. Then she saw another man. He had come from a hollow. He shook hands with the driver of the cart. He shook hands with the negro. He watched them go. He stood there until they were out of sight. Then, for the first time he saw the girl who had been watching him. There must have been a good half mile between them. But who can tell what tricks other than that of mere telepathy the mind can play? There for an interval it may have seemed to both Joan Gracie and Daniel Craig that they were once more face to face. She waved her hand. He answered her. There were tears in her eyes as she wheeled her horse and started back to San Pedro. Still, she must have known that they were to meet again and again--until the debts of the little ledger were paid. CHAPTER X SANCHO Craig, taking thought, knew that the power was in him--a queer feeling that all men and women may know some time. There was something more than a signal of good fellowship in that salute the girl had given him. It was an exaltation. This was the power. He had a general knowledge as to what part of the world Sancho Red had fled to. Not back to the arid hills of the Southwest that Joan Gracie had indexed after his name, had Sancho fled. No. But Gaspell had given information in that connection. Bud and Sancho had resolved to make a team of it. That was while they were still in prison. And Sancho had told Bud that he was too much wanted in his native Southwest to make that part of the map attractive. Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona--they all wanted Sancho. In all these States he had done murder, and possibly some other things a trifle worse. No wonder the girl had shuddered a little when she wrote out Sancho’s record. “I’ll have to get him next and quick,” said Craig in his heart. “The others can wait a while. They’re apt to hide out long enough for me to get to them before they increase their debt to society--and mine.” Not so, Sancho. It made Craig, himself, shudder a little now, when he thought of what Sancho might be doing this very day, might have done already in the brief liberty that had thus far been given him. Craig made for the Mississippi, and started south, working as a deck hand on one steamer after another, working on no one steamer long, stopping off wherever towns or new labor camps gave promise of information. Once or twice he guessed that he was followed, but this didn’t worry him greatly. The river was a maze--a maze of wide days and unlighted nights--spread out between the frontiers of the States, each State jealous of its rights, plantation owners and steamboat men all jealous of their labor--labor scarce enough without prowling deputy sheriffs making it scarcer yet by unsolicited activity. Perhaps there was something in that thing the newspapers had said