He worried a little, though, and felt guilty of something very like treason to Harlan; and at last, not being able to ride farther with the thoughts that fought with his desires, he wheeled his horse and sent it scampering back toward the ranchhouse.
When he reached the ranchhouse he saw none of the men, for he had set them at tasks inside the buildings; and he rode down to the ranchhouse, resolved to have a talk with the girl.
When he rode around the near corner he saw that the patio gate was open. His horse leaped with the stern word he spoke to it, bringing him swiftly to the gate, where he dismounted and threw open a door that led into the house.
He called to Barbara, and receiving no answer, he ran from room to room, not hesitating until he had explored them all.
Emerging from the house, he mounted his horse and sent him westward, while he scanned the big level around him for sight of the girl.
She had always ridden into the valley in former days, he remembered—and during the days of his guardianship she had more than once threatened to ride there. And he had no doubt she had gone there now, out of perverseness, just to irritate him.
He held his horse to a rapid pace as he crossed the level, and he was still a mile distant from the covert where Barbara had met Stroud when he saw a group of horsemen traveling rapidly up the valley.
Linton rode on, his anxiety acute, a grave suspicion afflicting him. And when, after he had ridden a little farther, he saw Barbara’s horse trotting slowly toward him, the stirrups swinging and flopping emptily against the saddle skirts, he drew a deep breath and brought his own horse to a halt, while he sat motionless in the saddle, tortured by bitter thoughts.
He had no doubt that what Harlan feared would happen, had happened—that Deveny had come for Barbara. And Deveny had found her, through his dereliction. He had relaxed his vigilance for only a short time, and during that time Deveny had come.
Linton looked back toward the Rancho Seco. The distance to the ranchhouse seemed to be interminable. He looked again up the valley, and saw that the horsemen were growing indistinct. Within a few minutes, so rapid was their pace, they would vanish altogether.
Linton thought of going back to the ranchhouse for the other men—that was why he had looked in that direction. But if he wished to keep the horsemen in sight he would not have time to get the other men. Before he could get the men and return to where he now stood Deveny would have taken the girl to that mysterious and unknown rendezvous in the hills in which his band had always concealed themselves, and Barbara would be lost.
Linton’s lips straightened. He was to blame.
He knew the danger that would attend the action of following Deveny’s men up the valley. Other men had attempted to trail them, and they had been found murdered, often with warnings upon them.
But Linton hesitated only momentarily. With a grim smile for his chances of emerging unscathed from the valley, he urged his horse up the trail, riding hard.
Several miles he had traveled, keeping the horsemen in sight, and he was beginning to believe that he would succeed where others had failed, when, passing through a clump of timber he detected movement in some brush at a little distance back.
Divining that Deveny had seen him and had sent a man into the timber to ambush him, Linton threw himself flat on the horse’s mane. He felt a bullet sing past him, coming from the right, and he got his pistol out and was swinging its muzzle toward the point from which the bullet had come when a gun roared at his left.
He felt a hot, searing pain in his side, and he reeled in the saddle from the shock. Instantly another bullet struck him, coming from the right. His pistol dropped from his weakening fingers, he toppled sidewise and tumbled limply into the dust.
Shortly afterward, seemingly while he was in a state of coma, he heard hoofbeats, rapidly growing distant.
He knew they were Deveny’s men and he yielded to a vague wonder as to why they had not made sure of their work.
Doggedly, and with long and bitter effort, Linton began to turn himself so that he could get up. The pain from his wounds was excruciating, so that each muscular effort brought a retching groan from him. Yet he kept moving, twisting himself around until he got on his knees. From that position he tried a number of times to get to his feet, but he failed each time.
At last, though, with the help of a boulder that lay beside the trail, he got his feet under him and stood for an instant, staggering weakly. Then he began to move forward to his horse. When he managed at last to clutch the saddle skirt he was reeling, his knees bending under him. However, he managed to get one leg over the saddle, taking a long time to do it; and eventually he was in the seat.
He spent another long interval lashing himself to the saddle with the rope that he carried at the pommel; and then headed the horse toward the Rancho Seco.
He began to ride, urging the horse to what seemed to him a rapid pace. But he had not gone very far when he sagged against the pommel, lifelessly.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVI
ROGERS TAKES A HAND
The trail herd had made good progress through the valley, and Rogers, aided by the Star men, had kept them going. The men feared no interference with the work, for they had terrorized the ranchers in the valley until the latter well knew the futility of retaliatory measures. Still, a certain furtive quickness of movement had always characterized the operations of the outlaws—the instinct to move secretly, if possible, and to strike swiftly when they struck was always strong in them.
Besides, the drive to Willow’s Wells was not a long one, and the cattle could stand a fast pace. So it was not long after the herd had left the Star until it straggled up a defile in the hills and out upon the level where Deveny’s men had to ride to take the south trail to the Rancho Seco.
The level extended southward for a distance of several miles to a grass range that the Star men knew well—for there had been times when they had grazed cattle there, making camp on their frequent trips to the Wells.
A range of low, flat hills marked the northern limits of the grazing section; and Rogers and his men trailed the cattle through the hills while the morning was still young.
The herd was through the hills, and Rogers, twisting in the saddle, was taking a last look over the plain to make certain there had been no prying eyes watching the movements of himself and the men, when he saw, far to the west, a group of horsemen just coming into view at the edge of the plain—seemingly having ridden out of the big valley.
Rogers wheeled his horse and watched the horsemen as they traveled eastward, making good time. He called to a man, named Colver, who was riding close to him.
“Them’s Deveny’s men—from the Cache. What in blazes are they up to? Somethin’s in the wind, Colver—they’re ridin’ like the devil was after them an’ burnin’ the breeze for fair!”
Rogers sent his horse scampering to the crest of one of the hills where, concealed behind some brush, he watched the progress of Deveny’s men eastward.
When they passed the point on the plain where they would have to veer northward if they intended to visit the Star, he breathed with relief. For he had almost yielded to a conviction that Deveny was headed for the Star.
But after the horsemen passed the point that led to the Star trail, a new anxiety seized Rogers—and a passion that sent the blood to his face swept over him.
His eyes were glowing with an excitement that he could not repress when he turned to Colver.
“Somethin’s up!” he snapped. “Deveny’s been sullen as hell for a good many days—ever since Harlan came to the Star. One of the boys was tellin’ me he heard Deveny an’ Haydon havin’ it out over at the Cache. If there’s goin’ to be a ruckus I’m goin’ to be in on it!”
He leaped his horse off the hill, racing him down into the grass plain after the other men. When he reached them he yelled sharply, and they spurred quickly to him, anticipating from his manner that danger threatened.
“I’ve got a hunch
that hell’s a-goin’ to pop right sudden, boys,” he told them. “An’ we’re goin’ away from it. If there’s any trouble we want to be in on it. Deveny’s up to somethin’. You-all know about the agreement made between Haydon an’ Harlan—that Harlan was to run the Rancho Seco without interference. Deveny’s headed that way, an’ Haydon ain’t around. It’s up to us boys to keep our eyes open.
“Harlan’s at the Star. He won’t be knowin’ that Deveny is headin’ for the Rancho Seco. Harlan’s white, boys; he’s done more for us guys since he’s been at the Star than Haydon or Deveny ever done for us. He’s promised us things that Haydon an’ Deveny would never do. He’s a white man, an’ I’m for him. An’ I’m for takin’ orders from him from now on. Who’s with me?”
“You’re shoutin’!” declared Colver.
“It’s time for a new deal,” muttered another.
“You’re doin’ the yappin’,” grimly announced a big man who was close to Rogers; “we’re followin’ your lead.”
“I’m jumpin’ for the Star then!” declared Rogers; “to put Harlan wise to where Deveny’s headed for. We’re leavin’ the herd here until we find out what’s goin’ on. Half of you guys beat it to the Rancho Seco—trailin’ Deveny an’ his boys, to find out what they’re doin’. You’re herd-ridin’ them if they go to monkeyin’ with the Rancho Seco. Slope!”
Rogers had hardly ceased speaking when the outfit was on the move. There were eleven men, including Rogers; and they sent their horses leaping over the crest of the hill nearest them—dividing, as they reached the level on the other side with seemingly no previous arrangement, into two groups—one group going northeastward, toward the South Trail, and the other fading into the space that yawned between it and the point where the trail to the Star led downward into the big basin.
* * *
Haydon, holding hard to the pommel of the saddle, urging his horse along the trail that led up the valley, looked back whenever he reached a rise, his eyes searching the space behind him for the dread apparition that he expected momentarily.
He knew that it would not be long before Morgan and Harlan would emerge from the ranchhouse to discover that he had escaped; and he knew, too, that they would suspect that he had gone to the Cache.
He expected they would delay riding after him, however, until they searched for him in some of the buildings, and that delay, he hoped, would give him time to reach the Cache.
He was handicapped by his useless arm—for it made riding awkward, and the numbness was stealing down his side, toward his leg. He paid little attention to the pain; indeed, he entirely forgot it in his frenzied eagerness to reach the Cache.
More prominent in his brain at this minute than any other emotion was a dread of Billy Morgan. He had yielded to terror when Morgan had revealed his identity; but the terror he had felt then had not been nearly so paralyzing as that which was now upon him.
His eyes were bulging as he rode; his lips were slavering, and he shuddered and cringed as he leaned over his horse’s mane, urging him to greater effort—even though there were times when his lurches almost threw him out of the saddle.
For his previous terror had been somewhat tempered with a doubt of Morgan’s veracity. Even when he had seen Morgan reaching for his pistol he had felt the doubt—had felt that Morgan was not Morgan at all, but Woodward, perpetrating a grotesque joke. To be sure, when he had seen that Morgan really intended to kill him, he had been convinced that the man was in deadly earnest. It had been then that he had desperately twisted himself so that Morgan’s bullet had not touched a vital spot.
But now his terror had grown; it was a thing that had got into his soul—for he had had time to meditate over what Morgan’s vengeance meant to him.
It meant that Morgan would kill him, if he caught him; that the life he treasured would be taken from him; that the magnificent body which he had always so greatly admired would be shattered and broken. The mental picture he drew further increased his terror, and he began to mutter incoherent blasphemies as he raced his horse at a breakneck pace toward the Cache.
But when he had ridden several miles and knew from the appearance of the valley that he was nearing the Cache and that he would reach it in safety, there came a change in him.
He grew calmer; he began to feel a rage that sent the blood racing through his veins again. He looked back over the trail as often as formerly, but it was with a new expression—malevolent hatred. And when he finally reached the entrance to the Cache and rode through it, heading toward the building in which, he expected, he would find Deveny, the malevolence in his expression was mingled with triumph and cunning.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVII
A DUAL TRAGEDY
Harlan and Morgan had made a thorough search of Haydon’s desk in the latter’s office in the ranchhouse, and they had found letters addressed to Haydon—received at various towns in the vicinity and proving Morgan’s charges against him. And upon several of the letters were names that provided damaging evidence of the connection of influential men with the scheme to gain unlawful possession of much land in the basin.
“This cinches it!” declared Morgan as he carefully placed the letters into a pocket when he and Harlan emerged from the ranchhouse. “I reckon we’ve got proof now. An’ the governor’ll be plumb tickled.”
They stepped down from the doorway and turned the corner of the house. Instantly they noted the disappearance of Haydon’s body. But they did not search among the other buildings for Haydon—as he had expected them to do. For they saw that his horse was also missing.
Morgan ran for the corral, saying no word, his lips set in grim, vengeful lines. He had been a fool for not making sure that he had killed Haydon, but he would not make that mistake again. The gleam in his eyes revealed that.
Harlan, too, divined what had happened. Purgatory was in the stable—which was farther from the ranchhouse than the corral. And though Harlan moved swiftly Morgan was already on his horse and racing toward the timber when Purgatory emerged from the stable, saddled and bridled.
Harlan noted that Morgan had not stopped to saddle his horse, and that omission revealed the man’s intense desire for haste. Harlan, however, headed Purgatory into the timber, but he was more than half a mile behind Morgan when he reached the main trail.
He saw Morgan riding the trail that led up the valley, and he set out after him, giving the big black horse the rein. He divined that Morgan suspected Haydon had ridden in that direction; and while Harlan had never seen the Cache, he had heard the Star men speak of it, and he had noticed that when setting out for it they had always traveled the trail Morgan was traveling. Therefore, it was evident that Morgan thought Haydon had gone to the Cache. In that case he depended upon Deveny to assist him—if Morgan followed; and Harlan was determined to see the incident through.
He sent Purgatory ahead at a good pace, but he noted soon that Morgan was increasing the distance between them. He began to urge Purgatory forward, and gradually the distance between the two riders grew shorter.
Both were traveling rapidly, however, and it seemed to Harlan that they had not gone more than three or four miles when—watching Morgan closely, he saw him ride pell-mell into some timber that—apparently—fringed the front of a cave.
It was some time before Harlan reached the timber, and when he did he could not immediately discover the spot into which Morgan had ridden. When he did discover it he rode Purgatory through, and found himself in a narrow gorge.
He raced Purgatory through the gorge, and out of it to the sloping side of a little basin.
He saw a house near the center of the basin—and Morgan riding close to it.
The distance to the house was not great—not more than a quarter of a mile, it seemed; and Harlan felt some wonder that Morgan—who had been quite a little in advance of him—had not reached the house sooner. That mystery was explained to him almost instantly, though, when he saw that Morgan’s horse was walking, going forward with a
pronounced limp. Evidently Morgan had met with an accident.
Harlan was riding across the floor of the little basin, watching Morgan and wondering at the seeming absence of Deveny’s men, when he saw a smoke streak issue from one of the windows of the house, saw Morgan reel in the saddle, and slide to the ground.
But before Harlan could reach the spot where Morgan had fallen, the man staggered to his feet and was running toward the house, swaying as he went.
Harlan heard a muffled report as he sent Purgatory scampering after Morgan. He saw Morgan reel again, and he knew someone in the house was using a rifle.
There was another report as Morgan lurched through an open doorway of the house. Then Harlan knew Morgan was using his gun, for its roaring crash mingled with the whiplike crack of a rifle.
The firing had ceased when Harlan slipped off Purgatory at the open door; and both his guns were out as he leaped over the threshold.
He halted, though, standing rigid, his guns slowly swagging in his hands, their muzzles drooping.
For on the floor of the room—flat on his back near a corner—was Haydon. He was dead—there was no doubt of that.
Nor was there any doubt that the bullets Haydon had sent had finished Morgan. He was lying on his right side, his right arm under him, extended; the palm of the hand upward, the fingers limply holding the pistol he had used, some smoke curling lazily from the muzzle.
Harlan knelt beside Morgan, examining him for signs of life. He got up a little later and stood for some time looking down at the man, thinking of Barbara. Twice had tragedy cast its sinister shadow over her.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVIII
CONVERGING TRAILS
An hour or so later, Harlan, having finished his labors in a clearing at the edge of the level near the gorge, climbed slowly on Purgatory and sent him back down the valley trail toward the Star.
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