CHAPTER XIIIA SHOT IN THE DARK
Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the seventeenth of January—the ranchers did not soon forget the date—a warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a myriad of tiny knives.
All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their bunks, to fall asleep almost beforethey assumed the horizontal. The other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they could have learned one reason that day.
All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from which projected a wilderness of horns.
The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.
Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their supervision the campaign was rapidly begun.For a few days the stock must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for the future.
The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.
For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid contrast against the surrounding white.
The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one foot ahead of theother, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man.
"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. "He slept there and had a fire."
Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints."
Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled him through and through.
"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said.
Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose not to avoid it.
"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair."
Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh.
"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some advantagesover the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to the old."
Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the strength of his conviction.
"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it."
Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and meantime nature compensates for everything."
There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here otherwise."
Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel.
"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at all—especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to follow it to-day;but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse—he's got to do something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take up the old trail in the morning."
Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, unless—unless he gets me first—He must be desperate crazy."
Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory to bed.
"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are mighty good—and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath came fast. Something more—who knew how much?—trembled on the end of his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. "Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son."
The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery.
"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said.
When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed.
Suddenly—whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not know—he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain.
Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but precipitately. He had not grown tomaturity amid animals without learning something of their language; but even if such had been the case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness.
The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the horses in his ears—for now he detected more than one voice. A growing realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough—to hear and to know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned anew.
It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin.
"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced for the barn.
The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound he had been expecting—a single vicious rifle report; and as though a mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the floor.
Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. But one idea possessed him—to lay hands upon this intruding being who had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now hadshot his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged away at full speed.
For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would grind its object to powder.
Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where they had laidhim, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping hysterically—her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command.
"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick."
Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim carelessness of a frontiersman admired it.
Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately.
"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is my affair. Put them up and go to bed."
For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their ears.
"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last.
Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window.
"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter myself."
For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment.
"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with your mother won't save him. I'm going—and now."
Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of the horse, and held him at arm's length.
"Freeman,"—the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the drip of falling water,—"Freeman, you know better than that, and you know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so—quick!"
Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man against his brother.
"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dimlight Freeman saw the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened them with his tongue.
"Yes, I know better," he admitted low.
Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt me?"
Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement of the impatient mustangs answered.
"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house.
The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass.
"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?"
"No, sir."
"See to it at once then."
"Yes, sir."
The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face.
"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?"
"Yes, sir," again.
Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man and took off his hat and coat.
"Graham!"
The foreman came close, stood at attention.
"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?"
"I will."
"And, Graham!"
"Yes."
"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the—burial. Dig the grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would have liked it there."
The foreman nodded silently.
Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came a succession of pistol shots—one, two, three. Then again silence fell.
CHAPTER XIVTHE INEXORABLE TRAIL
Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady.
Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the clouds, dissipated them,was obscured, and shone again. The something which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It was the trail of another horse—a galloping horse. It was easy to follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the yellow neck and stroked it gently.
"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun.
On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew grimmer at the thought.
Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he pass in sight of a human habitation.
All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked intelligently in response.
It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practicallybare of snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or hobble—for they knew each other now, these two—he turned the pony loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in his hand, thinking, thinking.
The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch.
Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of thestrong black coffee. The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous exertion, the trail was taken up anew.
For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt and spur which had forced the change.
Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his buckskin and gave the word to go.
"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, "and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day."
But though they gained—the record of the tracks told that—they did not gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished to a trot, the trot to a walk—a game walk, but only a walk.
Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and laid the dainty muzzle against his face.
"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well—but I can beat you now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're better for having known each other. Good-bye."
A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he started on ahead.
At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had learnedmuch; one thing was that in walking or running to step straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map.
As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture.
Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, though during the day at different times he had been able to see the bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far behind, and he would run norisk of giving a warning sign to eyes which must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by.
"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase—that it was now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched them!—how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew.
The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an opiate. He did not pause toeat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile—two miles—five—came to a rise in the great roll of the lands—stopped, his heart suddenly pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man travelling afoot!
Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.
Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind him;but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.
Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it fell, and there select his point of waiting.
As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly came the reaction, the chill. Tolie there in his present condition meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.
Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his heart.
Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At intervals he made inspection of theeast, looking out over the glitter of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow was moving,—was coming toward him.
Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of Bad River.
Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged at his heart.
Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.
And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but beneath,—God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approacha bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse—a noble thoroughbred. What varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger tightened, almost—
A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even such a one as thiswithout giving him a chance—no, he could not quite do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then slowly, slowly—
As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.
With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths.Squirming, straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding jaw—a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement—in unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face—then knew no more.