by Zane Grey
“Hazelton, I cannot let you do this thing. It’s suicide,” shouted Dann, above the noise of the flood.
Drake yelled: “The rider doesn’t live who can get across here!”
“Look at the drift, Sterl!” cried Larry. “It’ll drag you down!”
Red leaned close to Sterl. “You can do it, pard. But wait. Let me pick out a slatch for you.”
Again the leader intervened, distressed, terribly torn between what he must have felt his love for his brother and duty to a man about to imperil his life.
“My son, listen! Eric looks wounded unto death. You cannot save him. Don’t imperil your own life!”
Apparently the cowboys did not hear him. They bent keen eyes of experience upon that surging flood of turgid waters. Red pointed to a live gum tree that had been uprooted and was rolling in the current, tossed like a cork, its green branches now high out and again sinking under.
“You gotta dodge drift like thet,” Red was shouting. “No hurry, pard. Hold thet hoss! I tell you, let me pick the time.”
“OK. But I don’t see any slatches.”
“It’s shore black. An’ all bad, but some places will be safer. Hell! Ain’t she travelin’? Wuss than the Brazos, pard.”
Stanley Dann thundered: “Hazelton, don’t throw your life away. It’s my order!”
Slyter could see only death for man and beast in that racing whirl pool of flood and driftwood. Drake added his terse opinion. The other drovers exclaimed against the mad intention.
Sterl was deaf to them all. And Red confronted the men to yell: “Shut up! We want to save Dann’s life in any case. But if he’s gonna croak, we gotta find out about Ormiston pronto.”
“Krehl, are you cowboys mad…or do you know….”
“Hell, yes!” interrupted Red. “Thet’ll be duck soup for Hazelton!”
“Go, Sterl! Go!” cried Leslie poignantly.
Sterl was not deaf to that. He turned long enough to give her a piercing look and a word: “Thanks for that, kid.”
“Now!” pealed out Red Krehl.
Sterl released his strain on the bridle and thumped King hard in the flanks. The black sprang into action and took off in three jumps. He plunged clear under, taking Sterl up to his shoulders. His momentum carried him yards, and he was swimming with powerful strokes when he came head and shoulders out.
As they hit the current, Sterl turned King downstream, quartering for a point far down on the opposite shore. Then Sterl turned keen gaze upstream. If he could see bad pieces of drift in time, he could avoid them. But that had to be before King got into mid-stream. Logs moved faster than the current. He passed the lea of the point of land above and in a moment entered the zone of waves. Again and again, the backlash of the waves crashed over the heads of horse and rider. They were strangled, submerged, tossed. Logs grazed them, a huge piece of driftwood rolled over them, a great gum tree bore down on them, upending now its blunt trunk and now its roots. But just as it was about to fall, the roots caught momentarily on the river bottom, and the tree landed just behind them with a great splash and heave that submerged horse and rider again. The wave carried them on, swept them up, and left them safely out of the worst of the current. As they went on, Sterl pushed log after log away from the horse. Brush drifted around and upon them, but the stouthearted King drove through the tangle into the clear. Two hundred yards and more below the jump-off King struck bottom, and with a tremendous heave and snort he waded out on that shallow side ahead of where Sterl had aimed to reach.
Ringing yells from the drovers on the opposite bank brought back to Sterl the issue for which this battle with the flood had been undertaken. He had forgotten Eric Dann. When King emerged from the river to shake himself like a huge dog, Sterl searched the sandy slope for the wounded man. He did not locate him at once because he looked too far up river. Red’s piercing yell and outstretched arm gave him a clue, and presently he saw Dann sprawled upon the sand. Riding up the slope, Sterl dismounted and ran to him.
Dann lay flat on his back, arms wide, eyes open. At first glance, Sterl thought he was dead. That part of his visage not covered with dirt and blood was ashen white and clammy. His hair, matted with blood, failed to hide contusions. As Sterl bent over to scrutinize them more closely, he quickly recognized wounds made by the butt of a gun.
“Dann, you’ve been beat up,” cried Sterl anxiously. “Have you been shot, too?”
“Not that…I know of,” replied the man in faint, hoarse tones. “Must have…been unconscious some time.”
Sterl gave him a hasty examination for bullet wounds, but failed to find any. “Ormiston’s work?”
“Yes. Bedford, too…set upon me.”
“When?”
“About daylight.”
“Then they left?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know that…till I came to.”
Sterl, lifting the drover to his feet, found that he could not walk even when supported. So Sterl heaved him up to straddle the horse and, holding him there, urged King up the river. Sterl did not like the leaden glaze in Dann’s eyes. Still he might not be fatally injured. He wanted to question the man further, but decided that was not best, considering that Stanley Dann would interrogate him. Sterl confined himself then to consideration of getting across the river again. That was serious enough without being burdened by a helpless man.
The bed of this fork of the river widened upstream, with a correspondingly flatter bank. Sterl turned to look across. Red sat his horse in the middle of the open space, where the cattle had run. He waved his lasso. Leslie was close, and she fluttered something white. The others walked their horses up the river, keeping even with Sterl.
One thing of decided advantage to Sterl was unobstructed sight of the river above this bend, around which the current raged. He could pick out a time when there was less driftwood. Also he calculated that he could strike the swift current at the quartering angle. These two fortunate things almost counterbalanced the added risk of dragging Dann across.
Finally Sterl decided upon the point from which to start. It was somewhat above where he had leaped off to come over. Surveying the scene, he knew that King could cross again, if there was no accident. He waded the black into the shallow water up to his haunches.
“Slide off Dann. I don’t want double weight on the horse. I’ll drag you.”
“But it…it looks impossible,” panted the drover, terror-stricken.
“Not so bad as it looks. This is a great horse, Dann.”
“Can you…make it?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re not sure…I’d like to confess…something you can tell Stanley…in case….”
“If you drown, so will I,” interrupted Sterl. “But we’ll make it, Dann. All in the day’s work.”
He helped Dann to slide off feet first and let him down up to his shoulders. Then Sterl took a strong hold of his shirt, high up in front. He had to keep Dann’s head out of the water when that was possible. Even with good fortune and management, it would be underwater to the suffocating limit. To hold Dann and climb on King without stirrups or saddle at one and the same time was a job that made Sterl pant. After he did get up, he watched the river for a slatch. An endless procession of drift came swirling down. Sterl chose the first comparatively open stretch, and, timing so as to meet its forward, he urged King into deep water. Resting Dann’s head on his leg, he floated him along on the downstream side of the horse.
Sterl’s first break of emotion into his hard mood came as King breasted that flood, held his black nose high, parted the mass of débris, and, striking the current broadside on, sheered into the crested waves, magnificently powerful. Sterl thought then of other grand horses. Horses with fighting hearts. Horses that would die for their masters. King was another—surely the greatest—so great that he would save Dann’s life and his own.
The last of the heavy driftwood, in front of the open space, caught the horse and bore him on, submerged him, almost rolled him before he ex
tricated himself. Then they were in the thick of the crashing turmoil, as wave on wave curled back to bury Sterl beneath its yellow crest. For the first time Sterl hauled on the bridle with that rigid right arm. King responded and swam out of the rough water, while they were swooping downstream. Sterl feared his charge might have drowned. Blood and sand had washed away to leave Dann’s face livid. He hung limp, like a sack, in Sterl’s grasp.
A ringing yell awakened Sterl to the proximity of the bank. He looked up. Red was riding Duke at the water’s edge, swinging a loop of the lasso round his head. They were fifty feet from the shore, drifting swiftly toward the lower end of that bare place. If King passed that, he would be lost.
“He’s founderin’, Sterl,” Red yelled at the top of his lungs. “Beat him on! Only a little farther!”
The black had almost cracked. He had spent himself. Sterl knew he never needed to beat that horse. But he bent low and screamed: “On, King! On! You can make it! Only a little farther! Oh, King!”
The gallant horse responded to that piercing call. A last violent spurt, a last plunge, when his head rose high—then that lasso whipped out and spread to hiss and tighten with a crack round horse and rider.
Red dragged them ashore. Strong hands pulled Sterl and his burden up on the bank. Sterl was fast in the loop that likewise passed around King’s neck. The cowboy leaped off to come bounding back. He released Sterl from the noose, and then he yelled for help to pull the horse up. Drovers ran to his aid. In a moment more King, pawing the earth and strangling, was dragged up on the bank. Red’s brown hands flashed to spread the noose. King stood there on wobbling legs, his noble head bent, his tongue out, his eyes wild, and his beautiful body in convulsions. But spent, beaten, he did yet not collapse.
“King, that was a grand job, for a grand hoss!” rang out Red.
Sterl was almost on his knees while the drovers resuscitated Dann. He had almost drowned. But expelling the water from his lungs, rubbing and manipulating, brought him to. Then a drover put a black bottle to his lips.
“Boss, he’s been beaten up on the head…with a gun,” said Sterl, panting for breath. “No other wound…that I could see. Told me Ormiston and…Bedford did it. About daylight. Then they left.”
“Hazelton, it goes without saying, that I will forever be in your debt,” boomed Dann, his big voice singularly rich and deep.
“Forget it,” Sterl returned tersely. “Get his story…if he’s able to tell it.”
“I can talk,” spoke up Eric huskily.
“But not now, brother. Your wounds must be dressed. You must rest,” Stanley Dann said.
“Boss, get his story,” cut in Red, cool and hard. “He might have a fractured skull or internal injury. Let him talk before he croaks or goes out of his haid.”
“But now that his life is saved,” remonstrated the leader.
“Hell’s fire!” flashed the cowboy. “We’re goin’ after Ormiston. Hurry! Let him talk. Help us thet much.”
“Eric, tell me,” interposed Sterl. “It may help. Answer my questions…short, to the point. When did you drive your wagon across to Ormiston’s camp?”
“Last night…at dusk…before the storm broke,” whispered Dann.
“What for?”
“I wanted to be…on that side…to go with Ormiston.”
“Did you know he didn’t want you?”
“Not till daylight. Then I realized…what he was. Bush-ranger! Ash Pell! That’s his real name. Notorious Queensland bush-ranger. We’ve heard of him. I heard Jake and Bedford call him Pell. I found out they had rushed…our mob…stolen our horses. I confronted him…with these facts. Then they beat me down.”
“Did you know he had Beryl there?”
“He told me. She had come willingly.”
A groan emanated from Red Krehl’s lips. The muscles rippled on his bare arm. His jaw bulged. But he kept silent.
“Do you know any more?” went on Sterl, rising.
“When I came to…my senses…they were gone. My wagon was smoking. They had rifled it…then burned what they…didn’t take. I crawled down…to the bank.”
Stanley Dann lifted his hands high as if to invoke a curse upon his head. He swayed like a great tree uprooted, about to fall.
“God forgive my ignorance…my stubbornness! God forgive me for all except my faith in man! Shall that fail because some men are evil? Oh, my daughter! My daughter! Oh, my little Beryl!”
Sterl forgave him then.
“Dann, we’ll fetch her back,” he said. “Red, look King over. Saddle him, if he’s all right. Somebody get my saddle, boots, and spurs.”
“Pard, King was only strangled.”
“Friday, will you come?” queried Sterl, addressing the black.
“Me go alonga you,” he replied inscrutably.
“Good. Red, we’ve got some meat and bread. Dried fruit, too. They’ll get wet, but no matter. Dann, how many of your drovers carry rifles on their saddles?”
“Not one of those drovers who…deserted me…turned bush-rangers…perverted by that villain’s promises.”
“Red, I remember Ormiston had rifles in his wagon.”
“Yes. Small bore. An’ he couldn’t hit a barn door with them.”
“Ormiston and his outfit depended on this flood. That and nothing else! They all make mistakes, these hombres.”
“Sterl, let me go?” entreated Larry. “They murdered my friend. Let me go.”
“You bet,” retorted Sterl. Larry might not ever have ridden a deadly chase, but he had a light in his hawkeyes that was sufficient for Sterl.
Drake addressed himself to their leader. “Mister Dann, I couldn’t let these boys go alone. What Hazelton has done we can do…or try, at least. I’ve already learned some lessons from these cowboys.”
“Drake, you’re on,” rang out Sterl. “One more man. Rollie, are you game to go? There’ll be some hard riding…and a little gun play.”
“Hazelton, I was about to ask you,” returned Roland, pale and resolute.
“Here, fellows!” ejaculated Sterl, as the other drovers chimed eagerly, although plainly aware of the deadly nature of that pursuit, and the braver for knowing. “Three men are plenty. Thanks, though. You’re real pards, when the going gets bad. Mister Dann, I’d advise packing your brother back to camp. I think he’ll pull through.”
Dann gave the order to his drovers. Then he addressed the cowboys—not with his usual direct assurance. “If you will come up with Ormiston and his drovers….”
“If?” flashed Red, disrupting the other’s speech. “We’ll ride down thet outfit before noon!”
“Then…there will be violence?” went on Dann, swallowing hard. He was on strange ground here and was treading upon it with uncertainty.
“For cripe’s sake, boss!” burst out the cowboy, utterly incredulous. “Ormiston has damn’ near croaked yore brother! He has corrupted yore drovers an’ raided yore cattle! An’ as for Beryl…I swear to you, it’s wuss than if she did elope with him. I swear she never did. But he’s got her, an’ he’ll ruin her, if we don’t save her pronto. An’ you ask me if there’ll be violence!” Red halted to gain wind and find adequate expression for his amaze, his scorn and fury. “Hell, no!” he exploded. “There won’t be any violence! We’ll catch up with Ormiston, pay our respects, drink some tea with him, an’….” Here Red lost his voice.
“What will you do?” thundered Dann, roused by the cowboy’s stinging irony.
Sterl, having gotten his boots and spurs on, rose to face their leader. He was as cool as Red had been hot.
“Dann, we will hang Ormiston, if possible. It will be pleasant to see him kick. But kill him in any event! And his right-hand men. Your drovers will make a run for it…which may save them. With Beryl to care for we can’t chase a lot of white-livered suckers all over the place. You may expect us back with Beryl by nightfall, or tomorrow sometime, at the latest.”
“My God! What manner of men are these? You petrify me, Hazelton. But
you have never failed me. Nor has Krehl. Go! Bring back Beryl. I leave the decision to you.”
He stalked away, leading his horse, in the wake of the drovers who were carrying Eric back to camp. Red, with Larry and Roland, had galloped ahead of them.
It was then that Leslie, who had evidently kept well in the background, stole up to Sterl, and hung weeping to him.
“Cry baby! Didn’t you tell me to go, to take that plunge on King, when your dad and the others were scared stiff?” asked Sterl.
“Yes, I did. I’m not…crying…a-about you.”
“No? Well, I was conceited. You’re not afraid I’ll drown or be shot by Ormiston?”
“Hell, no! You can do…anything. You’re wonderful. I knew there…must be something…I loved you so! My heart’s broken…over Beryl. I know it’s worse than you made out.”
Chapter Nineteen
The five white avengers, picking a relatively calm stretch, swam their horses across the river. Friday crossed by holding onto King’s tail and floating behind. King did not need to be urged. He did not like those other horses ahead of him. He waded in and went off the bank into deep water without going clear under. While Sterl’s activities had gone on, brief as the time had been, the river had come up another foot. Ormiston, Sterl reflected, had probably assumed that the flooded river was an insurmountable barrier to pursuit.
There came a slight change in the temperature, the cool air moderating, and the drizzle increasing to rain. The gray overcast sky darkened. The five riders emerged from the river near the spot where Sterl had found Dann. They moved over the sandy stretch, and into the deserted camp, where the one wagon left was still smoking. Under the shelter Ormiston had used, the sand was still dry, and it was easy to read the signs where Dann had been struck down and had lain in a pool of blood.