CHAPTER XXI
THE END OF THE ROPE
Pronto had chosen his own trail and gait back to the Three Star. It wasGoldie that Sandy rode under the stars toward Nipple Peaks. He wasalone, refusing any company of Sam or the riders. Molly's last kiss hadbeen the key that turned in the lock of his heart and opened up toreality the garden of his dreams where the two of them would walktogether, work together all their days. It could have meant nothingelse. And she had been afraid--for him. Plimsoll living was a blot uponthe fair page of happiness. Though Molly, thank God, had come throughunharmed, to Sandy the touch of Plimsoll was a defilement that couldonly be wiped out by his death.
Nipple Peaks he knew by sight, two high mounds of bare granite above thetimber-line, barring the way to a jumbled country of peaks and ravinesand cross canyons among which lay Plimsoll's Hideout. Spur Rock he knewonly by rumor. That there was a pass between the peaks he did not doubt.And he rode to meet Plimsoll coming down out of it. To have returned tothe Hideout and attempted to follow a rock trail by moonlight, despiteits brilliance, would have been sheer folly. Plimsoll had from three tofour hours' start, he figured. And he calculated that, with luck, withcommon luck and justice, he would pick him up before he reached the baseof the mountain, before he got into the timber. If not, sooner or laterhe would cut Plimsoll's sign and follow it to the end.
As he rode over the finny ridge of Elk Mountain and saw the Nipple Peaksgleaming above the black pines across the valley, with Elk Rivergleaming in the middle, he realized that he had said nothing to Molly ofKeith, of the shutting down of the mine and his own action in her name.While she had asked nothing of young Donald. For the time it had been asif the rest of the world had been fenced off from them and their ownintimate affairs.
He compressed his knees and the mare answered in a lope that stretchedinto a gallop, fast and faster as she reached the levels and sped towardElk River. Sandy was not going to waste time looking for a ford. Themare could swim. The moon, sloping down toward the west, still above therange, helped by the big white stars, made the valley bright almost asday. He scanned the mountain toward the peaks, passed over the darkimpenetrable pines, surveyed the stretch of gently rising ground betweenthe Elk and the trees and shifted his guns in their scabbards. His riflehe had left with Sam. Either Plimsoll had not passed the peaks, was inthe woods, or he had come and gone. Something told Sandy this last hadnot occurred. Travel beyond the peaks must have been hard and slow androundabout for Plimsoll while he had tangented fast for the cut-off.
The mare took the cold river water about her fetlocks with a littleshiver, wading in to the girths, sliding to a deep pool where she had toswim a few strokes before she found gravel under her hoofs and scrambledout. Suddenly, while Sandy hesitated how best to arrange his patrol, ahorse came floundering out of the pines less than a quarter of a mileaway, a black horse, shining with sweat, tired to its limit, staggeringin its stride, the rider hunched in the saddle more like a sack of mealthan a man.
Before Sandy could turn the mare toward them three riders burst from thetrees like bolts from a crossbow, spurring their mounts, the two in thelead swinging lariats. They divided, one to either side of thefoundering black stallion, one at the rear, gaining, angling in. Theropes slithered out, the loops seemed to hang like suspended rings ofwire for a second before they settled down, fair and true, about theneck and shoulders of the black's rider. They tightened, the lariatssnubbed to the saddle horns, the horses sliding with flattened pasterns.The black lunging on, pitched forward as it was relieved of a suddenweight and its rider jerked hideously from the saddle, hands clawing atthe ropes that choked his gullet, wrenching, sinking deep, shutting offair and light with a horrid taste of blood and the noise of thunderingwaters.
The ropers wheeled their mounts and galloped back toward the woods, thelimp body of their victim dragging, bouncing over the ground. The thirdrode to meet Sandy. It was Brandon. He hailed Sandy with surprise.
"How'd you happen here this time of night, Bourke? Not looking for me?"
"No. I was looking for the man you've just caught. I was about a minutetoo late."
Brandon glanced curiously at Sandy, caught by the grim note in hisvoice. But he made no comment.
"Sorry if I spoiled your private vendetta, Bourke. You can have him,what's left of him, if you want. We were going to swing him from a treewith a card on his chest presenting him to Hereford County, with ourcompliments. As it is, Bourke, I'd be relieved if you'd keep out of thisentirely. Even forgetting you'd met us. We're within our rights, butwe've done some cleaning up to-night that we might have to explain if westayed too long in the state. We got the goods on Plimsoll; one of hismen whose girl Plimsoll had stolen helped us to pin them on him. We methim at Hereford. I'm going to send the facts and proofs to yourauthorities. They may not approve of lynch law these days, but theywouldn't act--and we did. I don't fancy they'll bother us any. He wasn'tworth the ropes he spoiled. Just as well you kept out of the mix-up."
Sandy said nothing. There was no need to mention Molly's adventure.
"Want to be sure it's him?" asked Brandon. "Let's look at the blackfirst. He gave us a hard chase, but we were too many for him and roundedhim up."
They found the black stallion stretched out on the turf with its neckcuriously twisted. Tired out, it had fallen clumsily and broken thevertebrae. It was quite dead. Both men looked at it silently, with amental tribute to a good horse.
The body of Plimsoll lay at the foot of a big pine. The loops were stilltight about his neck. One of the ropes had been tossed over a bough. Thetwo men had dismounted. They nodded to Sandy as he came up with Brandon.He had seen them before on their first unsuccessful trip to theWaterline. They were horse-owners, responsible men, who considered theyhad administered justice, who felt no more qualms concerning the deadman than if his body had been the carcass of a slaughtered steer.
"Waiting for the rest of the boys to come up," said Brandon. "We'll hitthe trail home to-night. Bourke wants to identify the body, boys."
Sandy looked down at the contorted, blackened face, and hisdisappointment at having been forestalled, sedimented down. Thegambler's features had not been made placid by death; they still heldmuch of the horror of the last moments of that relentless chase, hishorse failing under him, foreknowledge of sudden death and then thewhistling ropes, the jerk into eternity...! It was a thing to beforgotten, a nightmare that had nothing to do with the new day ahead.
"It's Plimsoll," said Sandy shortly. "I'm ridin' back to Three Star. Ifound him hangin' to a tree. Good night, hombres." He left them standingabout their quarry and turned the willing mare toward home. Peacesettled down on him under the stars that were fading, the moon below thehills when he rode into the home corral.
A figure was perched upon the fence, waiting. It was Molly, and sheleaped down almost into his arms as he sprang from the mare. In the graydawn her face seemed drawn and weary. There were the blue shadows underthe eyes that he remembered seeing there the time they had ridden overthe Pass of the Goats. She came close to him, her hands up against hischest.
"You're safe, Sandy. Safe!"
"I was too late," he said. "Brandon's men had been ahead of me."
"I'm so glad, Sandy. Your hands are clean of his blood. They are myhands, now, Sandy."
He swept her up to him, kissing her mouth and eyes, the eager pressureof her lips returning all with full measure. A streak of rose glowed inthe east behind the amethyst peaks. Her face reflected it like a mirror.The tired lines were gone as he set her down.
"How long have you been waiting, Molly?"
"Ever since I got back. I slipped out of the house when the rest hadgone to bed. If you hadn't come back, Sandy, I should have died."
"I don't have to go back east," she said presently. They had left thecorral and were under the big cottonwoods by Patrick Casey's grave. "DoI?"
"I don't reckon you can, even if you wanted to," answered Sandy. "Iforgot to tell you, Molly, that you're bu'sted, so far'
s the mine isconcerned. Listen."
She laughed when he finished speaking.
"Is that all?" She patted the turf on the green mound. "I'm sorry,Daddy, for you, it didn't pan out bigger. But I guess what you wantedmost was my happiness--and I've got that." She turned to Sandy. The bigbell of the ranch boomed brassily. Molly put her hand in Sandy's. "Itmay be most unromantic, Sandy dear," she said, "but I'm hungry. Let's goin to breakfast."
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