THE TRAIL LEADS DOWN

When Rangoon was tied, the Lone Ranger dragged him across the clearing and placed him with his back propped against a tree.

"You'll probably be here for some time," he said. "I'll take that gag out of your mouth if you can keep quiet."

The gag removed, the masked man studied Rangoon's face for fully a minute. "What's your name?" he asked.

Rangoon glared darkly from beneath the connected eyebrows. His mouth, already distorted somewhat by the scar on his cheek, was drawn even further back when he said in a slow voice that fairly dripped with hate, "You go tuh hell."

Penny spoke. "He calls himself Rangoon."

The Lone Ranger nodded. "It seems to me that I've seen him when he had another name." He turned to Penelope. "You, of course, are Penelope Cavendish," he said, more as a statement than a question.

The girl nodded while her eyes remained fixed on the face beneath the mask, and the mask itself. She hadn't noticed the slight limp when the Lone Ranger walked; the shoulder bandage was covered by his shirt. Her feeling was one of admiration and gratitude, but most of all resentment. She felt that Tonto had misled her. It was inconceivable that the man before her could so recently have been desperately in need of food. He didn't look helpless. He certainly hadn't acted helpless when he saw Rangoon. Yet Tonto had implied that his plight was serious. Perhaps need of concealment, not starvation, had kept the masked man hidden while Tonto sought food. Though Penny liked his voice and manner and the way he'd handled Rangoon, she could judge him only by facts and circumstances. He had come to the clearing—Rangoon was in the clearing. Wasn't it obvious that they came there to meet? Rangoon, known as an outlaw—the newcomer masked. True, the masked man had fired at Rangoon while Rangoon fired at him, but wasn't this perhaps an act for her benefit? Neither man was injured. These were the facts.

To Tonto, Penny said, "I didn't know your friend was an outlaw."

Tonto began to speak, but Penny continued. "If I had, I certainly wouldn't have brought food for you to take to him."

The Lone Ranger spoke quickly, "Are you the one who brought Tonto that food?"

"Of course. Didn't he tell you?"

"No," said the masked man, glancing at Tonto, "he did not."

Tonto was highly uncomfortable.

"If I had known where that food came from," the Lone Ranger said, "I might not have—"

"I suppose," interrupted Penny, "the fact that you had food from the Cavendish family complicates things for you."

The Lone Ranger looked at the girl somewhat surprised. She went on, speaking slowly and significantly. "It must make it a trifle difficult for you to go ahead with your plans."

Could Penelope know his plans and suspicions? The masked man tried to fathom the enigmatic expression in the girl's face. Did she know that he felt a strong suspicion that her uncle was hiring crooks to bring stolen cattle to the Basin? Did she realize that his purpose was to fix the guilt of murder on Basin killers?

He said, "It might make everything more complicated than you realize, Miss Cavendish." He took a step toward her. "I want you to understand one thing."

"Oh, please." There was annoyance in the girl's tone. "Don't let's talk any further. You've helped me, and if you feel that I helped you, we're square. I'd sooner let it go at that and start for home."

"It can't go at that," the Lone Ranger said decisively. "The fact that you've saved my life puts me in a peculiar position." He drew a cartridge from his belt. "Take this," he said offering the bullet, "and if there is any man in the world whose life means a great deal to you, tell him to carry it at all times."

Penny looked at the silver bullet in the palm of the masked man's hand.

"Silver?" she asked curiously, in spite of herself.

"Yes."

"So you want to repay me by agreeing to spare one life." She drew up proudly. "Keep your bullet. We are quite able to defend ourselves against you."

Turning abruptly, she mounted Las Vegas and rode quickly away.

As Penelope guided Las Vegas downhill she felt as if a buoyant hope had been punctured to sink into a black sea of despair. Her confidence in Tonto had been great, and despite what she had heard about the murder of the Texas Rangers, some tiny voice far deep inside her kept whispering that she should count on the man whom the Indian called "friend." She had to count on someone. Yuma thought that her uncle was a leader of killers. Penny felt otherwise. She had hoped somehow to find a strong, stanch friend who would feel as she did. Seeing Tonto's friend, she saw a masked man. A man who offered to spare the life of the one she loved most, in order to repay her for food.

Now she had no one to turn to but Bryant Cavendish. Stubborn, bitter, unreasonable old man that he was, he'd have to listen to her. He must be made to understand the forces that were piling up in his own home. He must be shown that Mort and Vince were scheming with Rangoon, perhaps with others; taking orders from an unknown chief; ambushing Texas Rangers; murdering and Heaven only knew what else. Bryant must be made to understand that his own life was probably in danger and must send word out for law men, many law men, to come and help. Becky had got word to the Texas Rangers. Bryant must find and use the same means, but this time they must reach the Basin without being ambushed.

Bryant would be hard to talk to, but the time for diplomacy in handling him was past. She rode on, not knowing that old Gimlet was waiting for her with stunning news.

Meanwhile, instead of replacing the silver bullet in his cartridge belt, the Lone Ranger put it in his pocket. He drew the Indian aside, out of hearing of Rangoon.

"Don't you see the spot we're in now, Tonto? If Bryant Cavendish is in charge of the Basin, as he's always been, he's the man we want. I'm alive to get him, only because of what his niece did for me. She may have given me a life that I've dedicated to the hanging of the man she cares for. I've got to know her feelings."

Tonto nodded his agreement, looking quite dejected.

"I don't think Bryant himself did the killing, Tonto, but unless things have changed since the last reports came out of Bryant's Basin, he rules his little kingdom with a mailed fist and there isn't a thing that goes on there that he doesn't order. If killers are there, he brought them there. The Texas Rangers must have died because Bryant Cavendish sent men out to kill them."

Tonto studied the tall man's eyes and noted that there was a new intensity in the gray depths.

"Maybe now," he said, "we make-um camp. You need rest."

"There isn't time to rest now. Penelope Cavendish believes I'm one of the outlaws. If she thinks Bryant is on the level and tells him about seeing me, he'll make things too hot. We've got to strike before he can act. It'll soon be dark enough to get to the Cavendish house without being seen, and I'm going there.

"Cavendish is an old man. At best he hasn't many years to live. His niece, if she loves him, can keep him. But we're going to take the killers that work for him and he's going to give us the evidence that will hang them."

The Lone Ranger spoke softly, but with a calm determination that told Tonto there was little use in trying to persuade him to postpone a meeting in a murderers' retreat.

"What's more," the Lone Ranger finished, "he's going to put that evidence in writing."

"Tonto go with you," the Indian said. "We leave Rangoon feller tied here."

"No, Tonto; I'm going alone."

Tonto tried to convince the Lone Ranger that he was risking his life, that he needed help, that he should not ride unaccompanied into the Basin; but the masked man shook his head.

"My plans are better, Tonto. We're going to leave Rangoon here by the trail these men use in going from the Basin to the outside. The first ones who come through here will find him. They'll release him and there will be some talk. I want Rangoon to think that both of us have ridden to the Basin. We'll start out down the trail, but you'll turn back and hide near by to hear what's said. I'll ride into the Basin, have a showdown talk with Cavendish, and meet you later in our cave in the Gap."

The masked man pointed out how Tonto's natural abilities made him the logical one to wait in the forest. No white man could maintain the vigil with the absolute silence that was so imperative. On the other hand, the Indian's scant knowledge of white men's laws and courts of law made him a poor one to dictate the sort of statement that must be secured from Bryant Cavendish.

The two returned to the proximity of Rangoon and made ready to start riding.

"Yuh can't leave me here," the scar-faced outlaw shouted.

The Lone Ranger looked at him and said deliberately, "Why not?"

"What if I starve, what if I'm et up by animals?"

"That," retorted the masked man, "would be easier than the way the Snake Flats homesteaders died when Abe Larkin killed them."

Rangoon's eyes went wide at the mention of the name he formerly had used and the people he had killed.

"What d'yuh know about them?" he cried.

"The law is still keeping a noose ready for Abe Larkin."

"Where yuh goin'?" There was panic in Rangoon's voice as he saw the two mount and point their horses toward the Basin. The Lone Ranger said, "Come on, Silver."

Rangoon tugged at his ropes, struggled with them until his wrists were almost bleeding. His courage, as darkness fell in the woodland clearing, ebbed until he was reduced to a sniveling, sobbing wretch with scant resemblance to the swaggering monster that had bullied Penelope.

"Who," he cried aloud, "who was he? Who in God's name was that masked man with the silver bullets? He called me Abe Larkin. Who in God's name was he?"

Somewhere, unseen in the darkness, a crouching Indian grinned.