In the packed moments that followed, a dozen shots were fired, most of them by the outlaws, two by the man on the box. A bullet struck Arthur in the elbow, and the shock of it for a time paralyzed his arm. The rifle clattered against the singletree in its fall. But the shortest of the outlaws was sagging in his saddle and clutching at the pommel to support himself.
From an unexpected quarter there came a diversion. With one rapid gesture the man in the clergyman's garb had brushed aside his yellow goggles; with another he had stripped the outer cover of charts from his roll and revealed a sawed-off shotgun. As he stepped down to the road, he fired from his hip. The whole force of the load of buckshot took the nearest outlaw in the vitals and lifted him from his horse. Before he struck the ground he was dead.
In the flash of an eye the tide of battle had turned. The surprise of seeing the clergyman galvanized into action tipped the scale. One moment the treasure lay unguarded within reach of the outlaws; the next saw their leader struck down as by a bolt from heaven.
The lank bandit ripped out a sudden oath of alarm from behind the handkerchief he wore as a mask and turned his horse in its tracks. He dug home his spurs and galloped for the brow of the hill. The other unwounded robber backed away more deliberately, covering the retreat of his injured companion. Presently they, too, had passed over the top of the hill and disappeared.
The ex-clergyman turned to the treasure-guard. "How bad is it with you, Art?" he asked gently.
That young man grinned down a little wanly at Jack Roberts. He felt suddenly nauseated and ill. This business of shooting men and being shot at filled him with horror.
"Not so bad. I got it in the arm, Jack. Poor old Hank will never drive again."
The Ranger who had been camouflaged as a clergyman stooped to examine the driver. That old-timer's heart had stopped beating. "He's gone on his last long trip, Art."
"This schoolmarm lady has fainted," announced the mule-skinner.
"She's got every right in the world to faint. In Iowa, where she comes from, folks live in peace. Better sprinkle water on her face, Mike."
Jack moved over to the dead outlaw and lifted the bandana mask from the face. "Pete Dinsmore, just like I thought," he told Ridley. "Well, he had to have it—couldn't learn his lesson any other way."
Roberts drove the stage with its load of dead and wounded back to Clarendon. As quickly as possible he gathered a small posse to follow the bandits. Hampered as the outlaws were with a badly wounded man, there was a good chance of running them to earth at last. Before night he and his deputies were far out on the plains following a trail that led toward Palo Duro Cañon.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW STREAK
Night fell on both a dry and fireless camp for the outlaws who had tried to rob the Clarendon-Tascosa stage. They had covered a scant twenty miles instead of the eighty they should have put behind them. For Dave Overstreet had been literally dying in the saddle every step of the way.
He had clenched his teeth and clung to the pommel desperately. Once he had fainted and slid from his seat. But the bandits could not stop and camp, though Dinsmore kept the pace to a walk.
"Once we reach Palo Duro, we'll hole up among the rocks an' fix you up fine, Dave," his companion kept promising.
"Sure, Homer. I'm doin' dandy," the wounded man would answer from white, bloodless lips.
The yellow streak in Gurley was to the fore all day. It evidenced itself in his precipitate retreat from the field of battle—a flight which carried him miles across the desert before he dared wait for his comrades. It showed again in the proposal which he made early in the afternoon to Dinsmore.
The trio of outlaws had been moving very slowly on account of the suffering of the wounded man. Gurley kept looking back nervously every few minutes to see if pursuers were visible. After a time he sidled up to Dinsmore and spoke low.
"They'll get us sure if we don't move livelier, Homer."
"How in Mexico can we move faster when Dave can't stand it?" asked Dinsmore impatiently.
"He's a mighty sick man. He hadn't ought to be on horseback at all. He needs a doctor."
"Will you go an' get him one?" demanded Homer with sour sarcasm.
"What I say is, let's fix him up comfortable, an' after a while mebbe a posse will come along an' pick him up. They can look after him better than we got a chance to do," argued Gurley.
"And mebbe a posse won't find him—what then?" rasped Dinsmore.
"They will. If they don't, he'll die easy. This is sure enough hell for him now."
"All right. Shall we stop right here with him?"
"That wouldn't do any good, Homer. The Rangers would get us too."
"I see. Yore idea is to let Dave die easy while we're savin' our hides. Steve, you've got a streak in you a foot wide."
"Nothin' like that," protested the man with the eyes that didn't track. "I'd stay by him if it was any use. But it ain't. Whyfor should you an' me stretch a rope when we can't help Dave a mite? It ain't reasonable."
Overstreet could not hear what was said, but he guessed the tenor of their talk. "Go ahead, boys, an' leave me. I'm about done anyhow," he said.
"If Gurley has a mind to go, he can. I'll stick," answered Dinsmore gruffly.
But Gurley did not want to go alone. There were possible dangers to be faced that two men could meet a good deal more safely than one. It might be that they would have to stand off a posse. They might meet Indians. The sallow outlaw felt that he could not afford just now to break with his companion. It was not likely that the Rangers would reach them that night, and he guessed craftily that Overstreet would not live till morning. The wound was a very serious one. The man had traveled miles before Dinsmore could stop to give him such slight first aid as was possible, and the jolting of the long horseback ride had made it difficult to stop the bleeding which broke out again and again.
After Dinsmore had eased the wounded man from his horse at dusk and laid him on a blanket with a saddle for a pillow, Overstreet smiled faintly up at him.
"It won't be for long, Homer. You'll be shet of me right soon now," he murmured.
"Don't you talk that-a-way, Dave. I don't want to be shet of you. After a good night's rest you'll feel a new man."
"No, I've got more than I can pack. It won't be long now. I'm right comfortable here. Steve's in a hurry. You go on an' hit the trail with him."
"Where did you get the notion I was yellow, old-timer? I've hunted in couples with you for years. Do you reckon I'm goin' to run like a cur now you've struck a streak o' bad luck?" asked Dinsmore huskily.
The dying man smiled his thanks. "You always was a stubborn son-of-a-gun, Homer. But Steve, he wants—"
"Steve can go to—Hell Creek, if he's so set on travelin' in a hurry. Here, drink some of this water."
The blanket of darkness fell over the land. Stars came out, at first one or two, then by thousands, till the night was full of them. The wounded man dozed and stirred and dozed again. It was plain that the sands of his life were running low. Dinsmore, watching beside him, knew that it was the ebb tide.
A little after midnight Overstreet roused himself, recognized the watcher, and nodded good-bye.
"So long, Homer. I'm hittin' the home trail now."
His hand groped feebly till it found that of his friend. A few minutes later he died, still holding the strong warm hand of the man who was nursing him.
Dinsmore crossed the hands of the dead outlaw and covered him with a blanket.
"Saddle up, Steve," he told Gurley.
While he waited for the horses, he looked down with a blur over his eyes. He had ridden hard and crooked trails all his life, but he had lost that day his brother and his best friend. The three of them had been miscreants. They had broken the laws of society and had fought against it because of the evil in them that had made them a destructive force. But they had always played fair with each other. They had at least been loyal to their
own bad code. Now he was alone, for Gurley did not count.
Presently the other man stood at his elbow with the saddled horses. Dinsmore swung to the saddle and rode away. Not once did he look back, but he had no answer for Gurley's cheerful prediction that now they would reach Palo Duro Cañon all right and would hole up there till the pursuit had spent itself, after which they could amble down across the line to Old Mexico or could strike the Pecos and join Billy the Kid. Only one idea was fixed definitely in his mind, that as soon as he could, he would part company with the man riding beside him.
When day came, it found them riding westward in the direction of Deaf Smith County. The Cañon was not far south of them, but there was no need of plunging into it yet. The pursuit must be hours behind them, even if their trail had not been lost altogether. They rode easily, prepared to camp at the first stream or water-hole they reached.
"We'll throw off here," Dinsmore decided at the first brook they reached.
They unsaddled and hobbled their horses. While Gurley lighted a fire for the coffee, the other man strolled up the creek to get a shot at any small game he might find. Presently a brace of prairie-chickens rose with a whir of wings. The rifle cracked, and one of them fell fluttering to the ground. Dinsmore moved forward to pick up the bird.
Abruptly he stopped in his stride. He fancied he heard a faint cry. It came again, carried on the light morning breeze. He could have sworn that it was the call of a woman for help.
Dinsmore grew wary. He knew the tricks of the Indians, the wily ways with which they lured men into ambush. There had been rumors for days that the Indians were out again. Yet it was not like Indians to announce their presence before they pounced upon their prey. He moved very slowly forward under cover of the brush along the bed of the stream.
The voice came to him again, closer this time, and in spite of the distance clear as a bell. It was surely that of a white woman in trouble. Still he did not answer as he crept forward up the stream.
Then he caught sight of her—a girl, slim and young, stumbling forward through the grass, exhaustion showing in every line of the body.
She stretched out her hands to him across the space between, with a little despairing cry.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIV
RAMONA GOES DUCK-HUNTING
"I'm going duck-hunting, Daddy," announced Ramona one evening at supper. "Quint Sullivan is going with me. We're to get up early in the morning and leave before daybreak."
They had been back at the ranch several weeks, and 'Mona was tired of practicing on the piano and reading Scott's novels after her work about the house was done. She was restless. Her father had noticed it and wondered why. He would have been amazed to learn that the longing to see or hear about a certain brindle-haired former line-rider of his had anything to do with her unrest. Indeed, Ramona did not confess this even to herself. She tried to think that she had been cooped up in the house too long. Hence the duck-hunting as an escape.
"All right, honey. I'll give Quint notice who his boss is to-morrow."
"I've already given him his orders, Dad," his daughter said, with a saucy little moue at her father.
Clint chuckled. "'Nough said. When you give orders I take a back seat. Every rider on the place knows that. I'm the most henpecked dad in Texas."
By daybreak Ramona and her escort were several miles from the ranch on their way to the nearest lake. Quint was a black-haired, good-looking youth who rode the range for the A T O outfit. Like most of the unmarried men about her between the ages of fifteen and fifty, he imagined himself in love with the daughter of the boss. He had no expectation whatever of marrying her. He would as soon have thought of asking Wadley to give him a deed to the ranch as he would of mentioning to Ramona the state of his feelings. But that young woman, in spite of her manner of frank innocence, knew quite accurately how matters stood, just as she knew that in due time Quint would transfer his misplaced affections to some more reciprocal object of them.
Her particular reason for selecting Quint as her companion of the day was that he happened to be a devoted admirer of Jack Roberts. All one needed to do was to mention the Ranger to set him off on a string of illustrative anecdotes, and Ramona was hungry for the very sound of his name. One advantage in talking to young Sullivan about his friend was that the ingenuous youth would never guess that the subject of their conversation had been chosen by her rather than by him.
"Did I ever tell you, Miss Ramona, about the time Texas an' me went to Denver? Gentlemen, hush! We ce'tainly had one large time."
"You boys ought not to spend your time in the saloons whenever you go to town. It isn't good for you," reproved the sage young woman who was "going-on seventeen."
She was speaking for a purpose, and Quint very innocently answered the question in her mind.
"No, ma'am. I reckon you're right. But we didn't infest the saloons none that time. Texas, he's one of these here good bad-men. He's one sure-enough tough nut, an' I'd hate to try to crack him, but the queer thing is he don't drink or chew or go hellin' around with the boys. But, say, he's some live lad, lemme tell you. What do you reckon he pulled off on me whilst we was in Denver?"
"Some foolishness, I suppose," said Ramona severely, but she was not missing a word.
"He meets up with a newspaper guy an' gets to fillin' him plumb full o' misinformation about me. To hear him tell it I was the white-haired guy from the Panhandle an' had come to Denver for to hunt a girl to marry. Well, that reporter he goes back an' writes a piece in his paper about how it was the chance of a lifetime for any onmarried fe-male, of even disposition an' pleasin' appearance, between the ages of twenty an' thirty-five, to marry a guaranteed Texas cowpuncher, warranted kind an' sound an' to run easy in double harness. An' would the ladies please come early to the St. Peter hotel an' inquire for Mr. Quint Sullivan."
"Did any of them come?" asked Ramona, her eyes dancing.
"Did they? Wow! They swarmed up the stairs an' crowded the elevators, while that doggoned Tex sicked 'em on me. Honest, I didn't know there was so many onmarried ladies in the world."
"How did you escape?" asked the girl, well aware that he was drawing the long bow.
"Ma'am, the fire department rescued me. But I ce'tainly did lie awake the balance of the trip tryin' to get even with Jack Roberts. But it's no manner of use. He lands right-side up every time."
After they had reached Crane Lake the cowpuncher tied the horses while Ramona started around to the far side, following the shore line and keeping her eyes open for ducks. The girl made a half-circuit of the lake without getting a shot. There were ducks enough to be seen, but as yet none of them were within range.
It might have been half an hour after Ramona left Sullivan that there came a shot from the other side of the lake. It was followed almost immediately by a second, a third, and a fourth. 'Mona caught sight of Quint running fast toward the horses. Her heart felt a sudden constriction as of an iron band tightening upon it, for half a dozen mounted Indians were in hot pursuit. She saw the boy reach the nearest bronco, jerk loose the bridle rein, vault to the saddle, and gallop away, lying low on the back of the horse. The Indians fired from their horses as they rode, but the man flying for his life did not take time to shoot.
For a moment 'Mona stood in plain view by the lake shore. Then she dropped among the rushes, her heart fluttering wildly like that of a forest bird held captive in the hand. She was alone, at the mercy of twoscore of hostile Indians. They would know that the cowboy had a companion because of the second bronco, and as soon as they returned from the pursuit they would begin a search for her. Perhaps they might not even wait till then. 'Mona lay there in despair while one might have counted a hundred. During that time she gave herself up for lost. She could neither move nor think. But presently there flowed back into her heart a faint hope. Perhaps she had not yet been seen. There was a little arroyo farther to the left. If she could reach it, still unnoticed, at least she could then run for her life.
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br /> She crept through the rushes on hands and knees, sinking sometimes wrist-deep in water. There was one stretch of perhaps thirty yards at the end of the rushes that had to be taken without cover. She flew across the open, a miracle of supple lightness, reached the safety of the little gulch, and ran as she had never run before. Every moment she expected to hear the crash of the pursuers breaking through the brush.
On the ranch she had lived largely an outdoor life, and in spite of her slenderness was lithe and agile. Beneath her soft flesh hard muscles flowed, for she had known the sting of sleet and the splash of sun. But the rapid climb had set her heart pumping fast. Her speed began to slacken.
Near the summit was a long, uptilted stratum of rock which led to the left and dipped over the ridge. She followed this because no tracks would here betray where she had escaped. For almost a quarter of a mile she descended on the outcropping quartz, flying in an ecstasy of terror from the deadly danger that might at any instant appear on the crest of the divide behind her.
Ramona came to a cleft in the huge boulder, a deep, narrow gash that looked as if it might have been made by a sword stroke of the gods. She peered into the shadowy gulf, but could not see the bottom of the fissure. A pebble dropped by her took so long to strike that she knew the chasm must be deep.
If she could get down into it, perhaps she might hide from the savages. It was her one possible chance of escape. The girl moved along the edge of the precipice trying to find a way down that was not sheer. An arrowweed thicket had struggled up from a jutting spar of rock. Below this was a ridge where her foot might find a support. Beyond was a rock wall that disappeared into empty space. But 'Mona could not choose. She must take this or nothing.
By means of the arrowweed she lowered herself over the edge while her foot groped for the spar of quartz. Her last look up the hill showed Indians pouring across the ridge in pursuit. Without hesitation she chose the chances of death in the cavern to the certainty of the torture waiting for her outside. Foot by foot she lowered herself, making the most of every irregularity in the rock wall that offered a grip for hand or foot. The distance down seemed interminable. She worked herself into a position where she could move neither up nor down. While her foot was searching for a brace one of her hands slipped and she went the rest of the way with a rush.
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