CHAPTER XXXVIIIDINSMORE TO THE RESCUE
If 'Mona lives to be eighty the high-lights of that wild ride will never fade from her memory. The mesas rolled in long swells as far as the eye could see. Through the chaparral the galloping horses plunged while the prickly pear and the cholla clutched at their flanks and at the legs of the riders. Into water-gutted arroyos they descended, slid down breakneck shale ridges, climbed like heather cats the banks of dry washes, pounded over white porousmalpaison which no vegetation grew.
Now Dinsmore was in front of her picking out the best way, now he was beside her with cool, easy words of confidence, now he rode between her and the naked Apaches, firing with deliberate and deadly accuracy.
"Don't look back," he warned her more than once. "My job is to look out for them. Yours is to see yore horse don't throw you or break a leg in a prairie-dog hole. They cayn't outrun us. Don't worry about that."
The man was so easy in manner, apparently so equal to the occasion, that as the miles slid behind them her panic vanished. She felt for the small revolver in her belt to make sure it was safe.If she should be thrown, or if her horse should be shot, one thing must be done instantly. She must send a bullet crashing into her brain.
To the right and to the left of her jets of dirt spat up where the shots of the Indians struck the ground. Once or twice she looked back, but the sight of the bareback riders at their heels so unnerved her that she obeyed the orders of her companion and resisted the dreadful fascination of turning in her saddle.
It had seemed to 'Mona at first with each backward glance that the Indians were gaining fast on them, but after a time she knew this was not true. The sound of their shots became fainter. She no longer saw the spitting of the dust from their bullets and guessed they must be falling short.
Her eyes flashed a question at the man riding beside her. "We're gaining?"
"That's whatever. We'll make the cañon all right an' keep goin'. Don't you be scared," he told her cheerfully.
Even as he spoke, Ramona went plunging over the head of her horse into a bunch of shin-oak. Up in an instant, she ran to remount. The bronco tried to rise from where it lay, but fell back helplessly to its side. One of its fore legs had been broken in a prairie-dog hole.
Dinsmore swung round his horse and galloped back, disengaging one foot from the stirrup.The girl caught the hand he held down to her and leaped up beside the saddle, the arch of her foot resting lightly on the toe of his boot. Almost with the same motion she swung astride the cow-pony. It jumped to a gallop and Ramona clung to the waist of the man in front of her. She could hear plainly now the yells of the exultant savages.
The outlaw knew that it would be nip and tuck to reach Palo Duro, close though it was. He abandoned at once his hopes of racing up the cañon until the Apaches dropped the pursuit. It was now solely a question of speed. He must get into the gulch, even though he had to kill his bronco to do it. After that he must trust to luck and hold the redskins off as long as he could. There was always a chance that Ellison's Rangers might be close. Homer Dinsmore knew how slender a thread it was upon which to hang a hope, but it was the only one they had.
His quirt rose and fell once, though he recognized that his horse was doing its best. But the lash fell in the air and did not burn the flank of the animal. He patted its neck. He murmured encouragement in its ear.
"Good old Black Jack, I knew you wouldn't throw down on me. Keep a-humpin', old-timer.... You're doin' fine.... Here we are at Palo Duro.... Another half-mile, pal."
Dinsmore turned to the left after they haddropped down a shale slide into the cañon. The trail wound through a thick growth of young foliage close to the bed of the stream.
The man slipped down from the back of the laboring horse and followed it up the trail. Once he caught a glimpse of the savages coming down the shale slide and took a shot through the brush.
"Got one of their horses," he told 'Mona. "That'll keep 'em for a while and give us a few minutes. They'll figure I'll try to hold 'em here."
'Mona let the horse pick its way up the rapidly ascending trail. Presently the cañon opened a little. Its walls fell back from a small, grassy valley containing two or three acres. The trail led up a ledge of rock jutting out from one of the sheer faces of cliff. Presently it dipped down behind some great boulders that had fallen from above some time in the ages that this great cleft had been in the making.
A voice hailed them. "That you, Homer?"
"Yep. The 'Paches are right on our heels, Steve."
Gurley let out a wailing oath. "Goddlemighty, man, why did you come here?"
"Driven in. They chased us ten miles. Better 'light, ma'am. We're liable to stay here quite a spell." Dinsmore unsaddled the horse and tied it to a shrub. "You're sure all in, Black Jack. Mebbe you'll never be the same bronc again. I've got this to say, old pal. I never straddled a betterhawss than you. That goes without copperin'." He patted its sweat-stained neck, fondled its nose for a moment, then turned briskly to the business in hand. "Get behind that p'int o' rocks, Steve. I'll cover the trail up. Girl, you'll find a kind of cave under that flat boulder. You get in there an' hunt cover."
'Mona did as she was told. Inside the cave were blankets, a saddle, the remains of an old camp-fire, and a piece of jerked venison hanging from a peg driven between two rocks. There were, too, a rifle leaning against the big boulder and a canvas bag containing ammunition.
The rifle was a '73. She busied herself loading it. Just as she finished there came to her the crack of Dinsmore's repeater.
The outlaw gave a little whoop of exultation.
"Tally one."
CHAPTER XXXIXA CRY OUT OF THE NIGHT
Night fell before the rescue party reached Palo Duro. The cañon was at that time aterra incognitato these cattlemen of the Panhandle. To attempt to explore it in the darkness would be to court disaster. The Apaches might trap the whole party.
But neither the Ranger nor Wadley could endure the thought of waiting till morning to push forward. The anxiety that weighed on them both could find relief only in action.
Jack made a proposal to Ramona's father. "We've got to throw off and camp here. No two ways about that. But I'm goin' to ride forward to Palo Duro an' see what I can find out. Want to go along?"
"Boy, I had in mind that very thing. We'll leave Jumbo in charge of the camp with orders to get started soon as he can see in the mo'nin'."
The two men rode into the darkness. They knew the general direction of Palo Duro and were both plainsmen enough to follow a straight course even in the blackest night. They traveled at a fast road gait, letting the horses pick their own way through the mesquite. Presently a star came out—and another. Banked clouds scudded across the sky in squadrons.
At last, below their feet, lay the great earth rift that made Palo Duro. It stretched before them an impenetrable black gulf of silence.
"No use trying to go down at random," said Jack, peering into its bottomless deeps. "Even if we didn't break our necks we'd get lost down there. My notion is for me to follow the bank in one direction an' for you to take the other. We might hear something."
"Sounds reasonable," agreed Wadley.
The cattleman turned to the left, the Ranger to the right. Roberts rode at a slow trot, stopping every few minutes to listen for any noise that might rise from the gulch.
His mind was full of pictures of the girl, one following another inconsequently. They stabbed him poignantly. He had a white dream of her moving down the street at Tascosa with step elastic, the sun sparkling in her soft, wavy hair. Another memory jumped to the fore of her on the stage, avoiding with shy distress the advances of the salesman he had jolted into his place. He saw her grave and gay, sweet and candid and sincere, but always just emerging with innocent radiance from the chrysalis of childhood.
Her presence was so near, she was so intimately close, that more than once he pulled up under an impression that she was calling him.
It was while he was waiting so, his weight resting easily in the saddle, that out of the night therecame to him a faint, far-away cry of dreadful agony. The sound of it shook Jack to the soul. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. Gooseflesh ran down his spine. His hand trembled. The heart inside his ribs was a heavy weight of ice. Though he had never heard it before, the Ranger knew that awful cry for the scream of a man in torment. The Apaches were torturing a captured prisoner.
If Dinsmore had been captured by them the chances were that 'Mona had been taken, too, unless he had given her the horse and remained to hold the savages back.
Roberts galloped wildly along the edge of the rift. Once again he heard that long-drawn wail of anguish and pulled up his horse to listen, the while he shook like a man with a heavy chill.
Before the sound of it had died away a shot echoed up the cañon to him. His heart seemed to give an answering lift of relief. Some one was still holding the Apaches at bay. He fired at once as a message that help was on the way.
His trained ear told him that the rifle had been fired scarcely a hundred yards below him, apparently from some ledge of the cliff well up from the bottom of the gulch. It might have come from the defenders or it might have been a shot fired by an Apache. Jack determined to find out.
He unfastened thetientosof his saddle which held the lariat. A scrub oak jutted up from theedge of the cliff and to this he tied securely one end of the rope. Rifle in hand, he worked over the edge and lowered himself foot by foot. The rope spun round like a thing alive, bumped him against the rock wall, twisted in the other direction, and rubbed his face against the harsh stone. He had no assurance that the lariat would reach to the foot of the cliff, and as he went jerkily down, hand under hand, he knew that at any moment he might come to the end of it and be dashed against the boulders below.
His foot touched loose rubble, and he could see that the face of the precipice was rooted here in a slope that led down steeply to another wall. The ledge was like a roof pitched at an extremely acute angle. He had to get down on hands and knees to keep from sliding to the edge of the second precipice. At every movement he started small avalanches of stone and dirt. He crept forward with the utmost caution, dragging the rifle by his side.
A shot rang out scarcely fifty yards from him, fired from the same ledge upon which he was crawling.
Had that shot been fired by an Apache or by those whom he had come to aid?
CHAPTER XLGURLEY'S GET-AWAY
The boulder cave to which the Apaches had driven Dinsmore and Ramona had long since been picked out by the outlaws as a defensible position in case of need. The ledge that ran up to it on the right offered no cover for attackers. It was scarcely three feet wide, and above and below it the wall was for practical purposes perpendicular. In anticipation of a day when his gang might be rounded up by a posse, Pete Dinsmore had gone over the path and flung down into the gulch every bit of quartz big enough to shelter a man.
The contour of the rock face back of the big boulders was concave, so that the defenders were protected from sharpshooters at the edge of the precipice above.
Another way led up from the bed of the creek by means of a very rough and broken climb terminating in the loose rubble about the point where the ledge ran out. This Dinsmore had set Gurley to watch, but it was not likely that the Indians would reach here for several hours a point dangerous to the attacked.
Of what happened that day Ramona saw little. She loaded rifles and pushed them out to Dinsmore from the safety of the cave. Once he hadshouted out to her or to Gurley news of a second successful shot.
"One more good Indian. Hi-yi-yi!" The last was a taunt to the Apaches hidden below.
There came a time late in the afternoon when the serious attack of the redskins developed. It came from the left, and it was soon plain that a number of Apaches had found cover in the rough boulder bed halfway up from the creek. Ramona took Dinsmore's place as guard over the pathway while he moved across to help Gurley rout the sharpshooters slowly edging forward.
One hour of sharp work did it. Man for man there never was any comparison between the Indians and the early settlers as fighting men. Dinsmore and Gurley, both good shots, better armed and better trained than the Apaches, drove the bucks back from the boulder bed where they were deployed. One certainly was killed, another probably. As quickly as they could with safety disengage themselves the braves drew down into the shelter of the brush below.
But Dinsmore knew that the temporary victory achieved could not affect the end of this one-sided battle. The Apaches would wipe all three of them out—unless by some miracle help reached them from outside. Ramona, too, knew it. So did Gurley.
As the darkness fell the fingers of 'Mona crept often to the little revolver by her side. Sometimesoon—perhaps in three hours, perhaps in twelve, perhaps in twenty-four—she must send a bullet into her brain. She decided quite calmly that she would do it at the last possible moment that would admit of certainty. She must not make any mistake, must not wait till it was too late. It would be a horrible thing to do, but—she must not fall alive into the hands of the Apaches.
Crouched behind his boulder in the darkness, Gurley too knew that the party was facing extinction. He could not save the others by staying. Was it possible to save himself by going? He knew that rough climb down through the boulder beds to the cañon below. The night was black as Egypt. Surely it would be possible, if he kept well to the left, to dodge any sentries the Indians might have set.
He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. Furtively he glanced back toward the cave where the girl was hidden. She could not see him. Nor could Dinsmore. They would know nothing about it till long after he had gone. Their stupidity had brought the Apaches upon them. If they had taken his advice the savages would have missed them by ten miles. Why should he let their folly destroy him too? If he escaped he might meet some freight outfit and send help to them.
The man edged out from his rock, crept noiselessly into the night. He crawled along the steeprubble slide, wary and soft-footed as a panther. It took him a long half-hour to reach the boulder bed. Rifle in hand, he lowered himself from rock to rock, taking advantage of every shadow....
An hour later Dinsmore called to 'Mona. "Asleep, girl?"
"No," she answered in a small voice.
"Slip out with these cartridges to Steve and find out if anythin's doin'. Then you'd better try to sleep. 'Paches don't attack at night."
Ramona crept along the ledge back of the big boulders. Gurley had gone—vanished completely. Her heart stood still. There was some vague thought in her mind that the Indians had somehow disposed of him. She called to Dinsmore in a little stifled shout that brought him on the run.
"He's gone!" she gasped.
The eyes of Dinsmore blazed. He knew exactly how to account for the absence of the man. "I might 'a' known it. The yellow coyote! Left us in the lurch to save his own hide!"
"Perhaps he's gone for help," the girl suggested faintly.
"No chance. He's playin' a lone hand—tryin' for a get-away himself," her companion said bitterly. "You'll have to take his place here. If you see anything move, no matter what it is, shoot at it."
"If I call you will you come?" she begged.
"On the jump," he promised. "Don't go to sleep. If they should come it will be up through the boulder bed. I'm leavin' you here because you can watch from cover where you can't possibly be seen. It's different on the other side."
She knew that, but as soon as he had left her the heart of the girl sank. She was alone, lost in a night of howling savages. The horrible things they did to their captives—she recalled a story whispered to her by a girl friend that it had been impossible to shake out of her mind. In the middle of the night she had more than once found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, wakened from terrible dreams of herself as a prisoner of the Apaches.
'Mona prayed, and found some comfort in her prayers. They were the frank, selfish petitions of a little child.
"God, don't let me die. I'm so young, and so frightened. Send Daddy to save me ... or Jack Roberts."
She recited the twenty-third Psalm aloud in a low voice. The fourth verse she went back to, repeating it several times.
"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"
And the last verse:
"'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow meall the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'"
Somehow she felt less lonely afterward. God was on her side. He would send her father or Jack Roberts.
Then, into her newborn calm, there came a far cry of agony that shattered it instantly. Her taut nerves gave way like a broken bow-string. Her light body began to shake. She leaned against the cold rock wall in hysterical collapse.
The voice of Dinsmore boomed along the passageway. "It's a cougar, girl. They've got a yell like the scream of lost souls. I've often heard it here."
Ramona knew he was lying, but the sound of his cheerful voice was something. She was not utterly alone.
Again that shriek lifted into the night and echoed up the cañon. The girl covered her ears with her hands and trembled violently. A shot rang out from the other end of the passage.
"Saw one of 'em movin' down below," the outlaw called to her.
But Ramona did not hear him. She had fainted.
CHAPTER XLIHOMING HEARTS
Jack crept closer, very carefully. He was morally certain that the defenders held the ledge, but it would not do to make a mistake. Lives were at stake—one life much more precious than his own.
He drew his revolver and snaked forward. There was nothing else to do but take a chance. But he meant at least to minimize it, and certainly not to let himself be captured alive.
It was strange that nobody yet had challenged him. He was close enough now to peer into the darkness of the tunnel between the boulders and the wall. There seemed to be no one on guard.
He crept forward to the last boulder, and his boot pressed against something soft lying on the ground. It moved. A white, startled face was lifted to his—a face that held only the darkness of despair.
He knelt, put down his revolver, and slipped an arm around the warm young body.
"Thank God!" he cried softly. He was trembling in every limb. Tears filled his voice. And over and over again he murmured, "Thank God!... Thank God!"
The despair in the white face slowly dissolved.He read there doubt, a growing certainty, and then a swift, soft radiance of joy and tears.
"I prayed for you, and you've come. God sent you to me. Oh, Jack, at last!"
Her arms crept round his neck. He held her close and kissed the sweet lips salt with tears of happiness.
He was ashamed of himself. Not since he had been a little boy had he cried till now. His life had made for stoicism. But tears furrowed down his lean, brown cheeks. The streak in him that was still tender-hearted child had suddenly come to the surface. For he had expected to find her dead at best; instead, her warm, soft body was in his arms, her eyes were telling him an unbelievable story that her tongue as yet could find no words to utter. There flamed in him, like fire in dead tumbleweeds, a surge of glad triumph that inexplicably blended with humble thankfulness.
To her his emotion was joy without complex. The Ranger was tough as a hickory withe. She knew him hard as tempered steel to those whom he opposed, and her heart throbbed with excitement at his tears. She alone among all women could have touched him so. It came to her like a revelation that she need never have feared. He was her destined mate. Across that wide desert space empty of life he had come straight to her as to a magnet.
And from that moment, all through the night,she never once thought of being afraid. Her man was beside her. He would let no harm come to her. Womanlike, she exulted in him. He was so lithe and brown and slender, so strong and clean, and in all the world there was nothing that he feared.
With her hand in his she walked through the passage to where Dinsmore held watch. The outlaw turned and looked at the Ranger. If anybody had told him that a time would come when he would be glad to see Tex Roberts for any purpose except to fight him, the bandit would have had a swift, curt answer ready. But at sight of him his heart leaped. No hint of this showed in his leathery face.
"Earnin' that dollar a day, are you?" he jeered.
"A dollar a day an' grub," corrected Jack, smiling.
"Much of a posse with you?"
"Dropped in alone. My men are camped a few miles back. Mr. Wadley is with us."
"They got Gurley, I reckon. He tried to sneak away." Dinsmore flashed a quick look toward Ramona and back at Jack. "Leastways I'm not bettin' on his chances. Likely one of the 'Paches shot him."
"Mebbeso."
The girl said nothing. She knew that neither of the men believed Gurley had been shot. Those horrible cries that had come out of the night hadbeen wrung from him by past-masters in the business of torture.
"You'd better get back an' hold the other end of the passage," suggested Dinsmore. He jerked his head toward 'Mona. "She'll show you where."
Ramona sat beside her lover while he kept watch, her head against his shoulder, his arm around her waist. Beneath the stars that were beginning to prick through the sky they made their confessions of love to each other. She told him how she had tried to hate him because of her brother and could not, and he in turn told her how he had thought Arthur Ridley was her choice.
"I did think so once—before I knew you," she admitted, soft eyes veiled beneath long lashes. "Then that day you fought with the bull to save me: I began to love you then."
They talked most of the night away, but in the hours toward morning he made her lie down and rest. She protested that she couldn't sleep; she would far rather sit beside him. But almost as soon as her head touched the saddle she was asleep.
A little before dawn he went to waken her. For a moment the soft loveliness of curved cheek and flowing lines touched him profoundly. The spell of her innocence moved him to reverence. She was still a child, and she was giving her life into his keeping.
The flush of sleep was still on her wrinkled cheek when she sat up at his touch.
"The Apaches are climbing up the boulder field," he explained. "I didn't want to waken you with a shot."
She stood before him in shy, sweet surrender, waiting for him to kiss her before he took his post. He did.
"It's goin' to be all right," he promised her. "We'll drive 'em back an' soon yore father will be here with the men."
"I'm not afraid," she said—"not the least littlest bit. But you're not to expose yourself."
"They can't hit a barn door—never can. But I'll take no chances," he promised.
During the night the Apaches had stolen far up the boulder bed and found cover behind quartz slabs which yielded them protection as good as that of the white man above. They took no chances, since there was plenty of time to get the imprisoned party without rushing the fort. Nobody knew they were here. Therefore nobody would come to their rescue. It was possible that they had food with them, but they could not have much water. In good time—it might be one sleep, perhaps two, possibly three—those on the ledge must surrender or die. So the Indians reasoned, and so the Ranger guessed that they would reason.
Jack lay behind his rocks as patiently as thesavages did. Every ten or fifteen minutes he fired a shot, not so much with the expectation of hitting one of the enemy as to notify his friends where he was. Above the cañon wall opposite the sun crept up and poured a golden light into the misty shadows of the gulch. Its shaft stole farther down the hillside till it touched the yellowing foliage of the cottonwoods.
Up the cañon came the sudden pop—pop—pop of exploding rifles. Drifted up yells and whoops. The Indians hidden in the rock slide began to appear, dodging swiftly down toward the trees. Jack let out the "Hi-yi-yi" of the line-rider and stepped out from the boulders to get a better shot. The naked Apaches, leaping like jack-rabbits, scurried for cover. Their retreat was cut off from the right, and they raced up the gorge to escape the galloping cowboys who swung round the bend. One of the red men, struck just as he was sliding from a flat rock, whirled, plunged down headfirst like a diver, and disappeared in the brush.
Jack waited to see no more. He turned and walked back into the cave where his incomparable sweetheart was standing with her little fingers clasped tightly together.
"It's all over. The 'Paches are on the run," he told her.
She drew a deep, long breath and trembled into his arms.
There Clint Wadley found her five minutes later. The cattleman brushed the young fellow aside and surrounded his little girl with rough tenderness. Jack waited to see no more, but joined Dinsmore outside.
After a long time Wadley, his arm still around Ramona, joined them on the ledge.
"Boys, I'm no hand at talkin'," he said huskily. "I owe both of you a damned sight more than I can ever pay. I'll talk with you later, Jack. What about you, Dinsmore? You're in one hell of a fix. I'll get you out of it or go broke."
"What fix am I in?" demanded the outlaw boldly. "They ain't got a thing on me—not a thing. Suspicions aren't proof."
The Ranger said nothing. He knew that the evidence he could give would hang Dinsmore before any Panhandle jury, and now his heart was wholly on the side of the ruffian who had saved the life of his sweetheart. None the less, it was his duty to take the man in charge and he meant to do it.
"Hope you can make yore side of the case stick, Dinsmore. I sure hope so. Anyway, from now on I'm with you at every turn of the road," the cattleman promised.
"Much obliged," answered the outlaw with a lift of his lip that might have been either a smile or a sneer.
"You've been trailin' with a bad outfit. You'rea sure-enough wolf, I've heard tell. But you're a man all the way, by gad."
"Did you figure I was yellow like Steve, Clint? Mebbe I'm a badhombreall right. But you've known me twenty years. What license have you ever had to think I'd leave a kid like her for the 'Paches to play with?" The hard eyes of the outlaw challenged a refutation of his claim.
"None in the world, Homer. You're game. Nobody ever denied you guts. An' you're a better man than I thought you were."
Dinsmore splattered the face of a rock with tobacco juice and his stained teeth showed in a sardonic grin.
"I've got a white black heart," he jeered.
CHAPTER XLIIA DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Rescued and rescuers rode out of the cañon as soon as the Apaches had been driven away. Nobody suggested that the Indians who had been killed in the surprise attack be buried. The bodies were left lying where they had fallen. For in those days no frontiersman ever buried a dead redskin. If the body happened to be inconveniently near a house, a mounted cowboy roped one foot and dragged it to a distance. Those were the years when all settlers agreed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. The Indian wars are over now, and a new generation can safely hold a more humane view; but old-timers in the Panhandle will tell you to-day that the saying was literally true.
The little group of riders drew out of the gorge and climbed the shale slide to the plain above. Roberts rode knee to knee with Dinsmore. On the other side of the outlaw was Jumbo. The man between them still carried his rifle and his revolver, but he understood without being told that he was a prisoner.
Wadley dropped back from his place beside Ramona and ranged up beside the officer.
"What are you aimin' to do with him, Jack?" he asked in a low voice.
"I'm goin' to turn him over to Cap Ellison."
The cattleman pondered that awhile before he continued. "'Mona has been tellin' me about you an' her, Jack. I ain't got a word to say—not a word. If you're the man she wants, you're sure the man she'll get. But I want to tell you that you're a lucky young scamp. You don't deserve her. I've got to see the man yet that does."
"We're not goin' to quarrel about that, Mr. Wadley," agreed Jack. "I'm nothin' but a rough cowboy, an' she's the salt of the earth. I don't see what she sees in me."
"H'm!" grunted the owner of the A T O, and looked at the lithe, brown, young fellow, supple as a whip and strong as tested steel. It was not hard to understand what a girl saw in him. "Glad you got sense enough to know that."
"I'm not a plumb fool, you know."
Clint changed the subject apparently. "Boy, I've been in hell ever since Sullivan rode in with the bad news. My God! how I suffered till I saw my little trick standing there alive and well."
The Ranger nodded. He thought he knew what Wadley was driving toward. But he was resolved to give him no help. He must make his own plea.
"You helped save her, Jack. That's all right. I reckon you care for her too. Any man would 'a' done what you did. But Dinsmore, he did a whole lot more 'n you. When he was hotfootingit to escape from you, he turned round an' started to bring her back to the ranch. Steve Gurley, he said to take 'Mona along with 'em to the cañon. You know what that hellhound meant. But Dinsmore wouldn't stand for that. He said she was entitled to be took home. Well, you know how the 'Paches cut 'em off."
"Yes. That's how we figured it out," said Roberts.
"Her hawss stepped into a prairie-dog hole an' broke its leg. Dinsmore stopped an' swung her up behind him, the 'Paches gainin' every jump of the road. Oncet they reached Palo Duro he stood off the devils till she reached the ledge. Jack, we're lucky that a man like Homer Dinsmore was beside her yesterday, don't you reckon?"
"I reckon." Tiny beads of sweat stood on the forehead of the boy. He knew now what was coming.
"Good enough. Well, Jack, I reckon we cayn't take Dinsmore in to be hanged. That wouldn't be human, would it?"
The roof of the Ranger's mouth was dry. He looked away across the rolling waves of prairie while the cattleman waited for his answer. Every impulse of desire in him leaned toward the argument Wadley was making. His love for Ramona, his gratitude to Dinsmore, his keen desire to meet halfway the man who was to be hisfather-in-law and had accepted the prospect so generously, his boyish admiration for the thing that the outlaw had done, all tugged mightily at him.
"An' look a-here," went on the cattleman, "you got to keep in mind that you never would 'a' got Dinsmore this trip in kingdom come if he hadn't stopped to save 'Mona. He'd 'a' kep' right up the cañon till he was sure enough lost. It would be a damned mean trick for you to take a man in to be hanged because he had risked his life to save the girl you claim to love."
"You make me feel like a yellow hound, Mr. Wadley," admitted Roberts. "But what am I to do? When I joined the Rangers I swore to enforce the law. You know how it is in the force. We've got no friends when we're sent out to get a man. I'd bring in my own brother if he was wanted. That's why the Texas Rangers stack up so high. They play no favorites an' they let no prisoners escape. You're askin' me to throw down Cap Ellison who trusts me, the State that pays me, the boys on the force that pal with me, an' my loyalty to the people. You want me to do it because I've got a personal reason to wish Dinsmore to get away. If I don't take him in to town I'm a traitor. That's the long an' the short of it."
"Hell's blazes!" broke in the cattleman. "I thought you was a man an' not a machine. Youwant to marry my li'l' girl, but you're not willin' to do a favor to the man who has just saved her from a hundred horrible deaths. Haven't you any guts in you a-tall?"
The muscles stood out on the lean, set face of the Ranger like rawhide ropes. "I can't lie down on my job. Ramona wouldn't ask it of me. I've got to go through. That's what I'm paid for."
"She's askin' it right now. Through me."
"Then she doesn't understand what she's askin'. Let me talk with her. Let me explain—"
"We don't want any of yore damned explanations," interrupted Wadley roughly. "Talk turkey. Will you or won't you? Me, I ain't plumb crazy about law. It's justice I want done. I'll be doggoned if I'm goin' to stand by an' let any harm come to Dinsmore—not this here year of our Lord."
"I'll do all I can for him—"
"Except that you're bound an' determined to see him hanged. You sure beat my time. I'd think you would be right anxious to tell him to cut his stick—kinda slide out inconspicuous when we ain't watchin'. Be reasonable, Roberts. That's all I ask. I want to be yore friend if you'll let me. My bank's behind you to back any business proposition you want to start. Or that job I offered you before is open to you. After a little we can fix up some kind of a partnership."
The dark color burned under the tan of theRanger's face. His lips were like a steel trap, and in his eyes there was a cold glitter. "It doesn't get you anywhere to talk that-a-way to me, Mr. Wadley. I'd want to marry Miss Ramona just the same if she was the poorest girl in the Panhandle. Offer me a deed to the A T O an' it wouldn't make any difference to me. I'm not goin' to turn Dinsmore loose because it's to my advantage."
"Don't get on the prod, young fellow. I wasn't tryin' to bribe you. I was showin' you how I felt. But you're so damned high-headed a plain man can't talk sense to you." The impulsive anger of the old Texan suddenly ripped out. "Hell, I'm not goin' to beg you to do what yore own decency ought to tell you right away. But I'll say this right off the reel: neither 'Mona nor I want to have a thing to do with a man who's so selfish he can't yield the first favor she ever asked of him. We're through with you."
The two men had fallen back of the others and were riding alone. Now the young Texan looked hard at the old-timer. The eyes of neither of them gave way even for a beat of the lashes.
"I'll have to hear Miss Ramona say that before it goes with me," answered Roberts steadily.
"All right. You can hear it right this minute." The cattleman touched his horse with the spur and cantered forward.
The Ranger was with him when they drew up beside Ramona. The smile in the eyes of the girl died away as she looked first at one and then at the other of them. She was sensitive to atmospheres, and if she had not been the harsh surface of both of them would have been evidence enough of a clash.
"Ramona," began her father, "this fellow here is a Ranger first an' a human bein' afterward. He's hell-bent on takin' Dinsmore to prison so as to make a big name for himself. I've told him how we feel, an' he says that doesn't make any difference a-tall, that Dinsmore's got to hang."
"That isn't what I meant a-tall," explained Jack. "I've been tryin' to tell yore father that I'd give an arm to turn him loose. But I can't. It wouldn't be right."
The soft eyes of the girl pleaded with her lover. "I think we ought to free him, Jack. He saved my life. He fought for me. Nobody could have done more for me. He ... he was so good to me." Her voice broke on the last sentence.
The young man swallowed a lump in his throat. "I wish I could. But don't you see I can't? I'm not Jack Roberts, the man who ... who cares for you. I'm an officer of the State sent out to bring in this man wanted for a crime. I'vegotto take him in."
"But he saved my life," she said gently, puzzled at his queer point of view. "He stayed withme when he could easily have escaped. You wouldn't ... take advantage of that, Jack?"
"I'll give every dollar I've got in the world to clear him, 'Mona. I'll fight for him to a finish. But I've got to take him to town an' put him in jail. If I don't I can't ever hold up my head again," he told her desperately.
"I thought you loved me, Jack," she murmured, through gathering tears.
"What kind of a man would I be for you to marry if I threw down on what was right just because you asked me to an' I wanted to do it?" he demanded.
"He's got his neck bowed, 'Mona. I told him how we felt, but he wouldn't believe me. I reckon he knows now," her father said.
"You're not goin' to throw me over because I've got to do what I think right, 'Mona?" asked Jack miserably.
"I ... I'm not throwing you over. It's you. You're throwingmeover. Don't you see that we'vegotto help Mr. Dinsmore because he did so much for me?"
"Certainly I see that. I'll resign from the Rangers, and then we'll all pull together for him, 'Mona."
"After you've pulled on the rope that hangs him," added Clint angrily. "Nothin' to that, 'Mona. He's for us or he's against us. Let him say which right now."
The girl nodded, white to the lips.
"Do you mean that you'll give me up unless I let Dinsmore escape before we reach town?" asked the young man.
"I ... I've got to save him as he did me. If you won't help, it's because you don't love me enough," she faltered.
"I can't," the boy cried.
"'Nough said," cut in Wadley. "You've got yore answer, 'Mona, an' he's got his."
Jack stiffened in the saddle. His hard eyes bored straight into those of his sweetheart. "Have I?" he asked of her.
The girl nodded and turned her head away with a weak, little gesture of despair. Her heart was bleeding woe.
The Ranger wheeled on his horse and galloped back to his place beside Dinsmore.
CHAPTER XLIIITEX RESIGNS
Jack Roberts, spurs jingling, walked into the office of his chief.
Ellison looked up, leaned back in his chair, and tugged at his goatee. "Well, Tex, you sure were thorough. Four men in the Dinsmore outfit, an' inside o' two days three of 'em dead an' the fourth a prisoner. You hit quite a gait, son."
"I've come to resign," announced the younger man.
"Well, I kinda thought you'd be resignin' about now," said the Captain with a smile. "Weddin' bells liable to ring right soon, I reckon."
"Not mine," replied Roberts.
Somehow, in the way he said it, the older man knew that the subject had been closed.
"Goin' to take that job Clint offered you?"
"No." Jack snapped out the negative curtly, explosively.
Another topic closed.
"Just quittin'. No reasons to offer, son?"
"Reasons a-plenty. I've had man-huntin' enough to last me a lifetime. I'm goin' to try law-breakin' awhile for a change."
"Meanin'?"
"You can guess what I mean, Captain, an' ifyou're lucky you'll guess right. Point is, I'm leavin' the force to-day."
"Kinda sudden, ain't it, Tex?"
"At six o'clock to-night. Make a note of the time, Captain. After that I'm playin' my own hand. Understand?"
"I understand you're sore as a thumb with a bone felon. Take yore time, son. Don't go off half-cocked." The little Captain rose and put his hand on the shoulder of the boy. "I reckon things have got in a sort of kink for you. Give 'em time to unravel, Tex."
The eyes of the Ranger softened. "I've got nothin' against you, Captain. You're all there. We won't go into any whyfors, but just let it go as it stands. I want to quit my job—right away. This round-up of the Dinsmores about cleans the Panhandle anyhow."
"You're the doctor, Tex. But why not take yore time? It costs nothin' Tex to wait a day or two an' look around you first."
"I've got business—to-night. I'd rather quit when I said."
"What business?" asked Ellison bluntly. "You mentioned law-breakin'. Aimin' to shoot up the town, are you?"
"At six to-night, Captain, my resignation takes effect."
The little man shrugged. "I hear you, Jack. You go off the pay-roll at six. I can feel it in mybones that you're goin' to pull off some fool business. Don't run on the rope too far, Jack. Everybody that breaks the law looks alike to my boys, son."
"I'll remember."
"Good luck to you." Ellison offered his hand.
Roberts wrung it. "Same to you, Cap. So long."
The young man walked downtown, ate his dinner at the hotel, and from there strolled down to the largest general store in town. Here he bought supplies enough to last for a week—flour, bacon, salt, sugar, tobacco, and shells for rifle and revolvers. These he carried to his room, where he lay down on the bed and read a month-old Trinidad paper.
Presently the paper sagged. He began to nod, fell asleep. When he opened his eyes again it was late in the afternoon. His watch told him that it was just six o'clock.
He got up, took off the buckskin suit that had served him for a uniform, and donned once more the jeans and chaps he had worn as a line-rider.
"Good-bye, Mr. Ranger," he told himself. "I reckon you can't have much worse luck as a citizen than as an officer."
He buckled round his waist the belt that held his revolvers, and from the corner of the room where it stood took his rifle. Carrying the supplies he had that afternoon bought, he directed his steps to the Elephant Corral and saddled hishorse. With motions of deft economy he packed the provisions for travel, then swung to the saddle and cantered down the street.
At the post-office corner he swung to the left for a block and dismounted in front of a rather large dugout.
A wrinkled little man with a puzzled, lost-puppy look on his face sat on a bench in front mending a set of broken harness.
"'Lo, Tex. How they comin'?" he asked.
"'Lo, Yorky. Hope I see you well," drawled the horseman, a whimsical twitch of humor at the corner of his mouth. He was swinging his lariat carelessly as cowboys do.
"Jes' tol'able. I got a misery in my left shoulder I'm a-goin' to try some yerbs I done had recommended." Yorky was the kind of simple soul who always told you just how he was when you asked him.
Roberts passed him and led the way into the house. "Come inside, Yorky, I want to talk with you," he said.
The room into which the cowboy had passed was a harness shop. It was littered with saddles and bridles and broken bits of traces. A workman's bench and tools were in one corner of the shop. A door, bolted and padlocked, led to a rear room.
Jack put down his rifle and his belt on a shelf and sat down on the bench.
"Yore prisoner's in there all right," said the saddler with a jerk of his thumb over his left shoulder.
Since no one else in town would take the place, Yorky had been unanimously chosen jailer. He did not like the job, but it gave him an official importance that flattered his vanity.
"He's not my prisoner any more, Yorky. He's yours. I quit being a Ranger just twenty-five minutes ago."
"You don't say! Well, I reckon you done wise. A likely young fellow—"
"Where's yore six-shooter?" demanded Jack.
Yorky was a trifle surprised. "You're sittin' on it," he said, indicating the work bench.
Roberts got up and stood aside. "Get it."
The lank jaw of the jailer hung dolefully. He rubbed its bristles with a hand very unsure of itself.
"Now, you look a-hyer, Tex. I'm jailer, I am. I don't allow to go with you to bring in no bad-man. Nothin' of that sort. It ain't in the contract."
"I'm not askin' it. Get yore gat."
The little saddler got it, though with evident misgivings.
The brown, lean young man reseated himself on the bench. "I've come here to get yore prisoner," he explained.
"Sure," brightened the jailer. "Wait till I getmy keys." He put the revolver down on the table and moved toward the nail on which hung two large keys.
"I'm just through tellin' you that I'm no longer a Ranger, but only a private citizen."
Yorky was perplexed. He felt he was not getting the drift of this conversation. "Well, an' I done said, fine, a young up 'n' comin' fellow like you—"
"You've got no business to turn yore prisoner over to me, Yorky. I'm not an officer."
"Oh, tha's all right. Anything you say, Tex."
"I'm goin' to give him my horse an' my guns an' tell him to hit the trail."
The puzzled lost-dog look was uppermost on the wrinkled little face just now. Yorky was clearly out of his depth. But of course Jack Roberts, the best Ranger in the Panhandle, must know what he was about.
"Suits me if it does you, Tex," the saddler chirped.
"No, sir. You've got to make a fight to hold Dinsmore. He's wanted for murder an' attempted robbery. You're here to see he doesn't get away."
"Make a fight! You mean ... fight you?"
"That's just what I mean. I'm out of reach of my gats. Unhook yore gun if I make a move toward you."
Yorky scratched his bewildered head. Thiscertainly did beat the Dutch. He looked helplessly at this brown, lithe youth with the well-packed muscles.
"I'll be doggoned if I know what's eatin' you, Tex. I ain't a-goin' to fight you none a-tall."
"You bet you are! I've warned you because I don't want to take advantage of you, since I've always had the run of the place. But you're jailer here. You'vegotto fight—or have everybody in town say you're yellow."
A dull red burned into the cheeks of the little man. "I don't aim for to let no man say that, Tex."
"That's the way to talk, Yorky. I've got no more right to take Dinsmore away than any other man." Jack was playing with his lariat. He had made a small loop at one end and with it was swinging graceful ellipses in the air. "Don't you let me do it."
Yorky was nervous, but decided. "I ain't a-goin' to," he said, and the revolver came to a businesslike position, its nose pointed straight for Roberts.
The gyrations of the rope became more active and the figures it formed more complex.
"Quit yore foolin', Tex, an' get down to cases. Dad-gum yore hide, a fellow never can tell what you honest-to-God mean."
The rope snaked forward over the revolver and settled on the wrist of the jailer. It tightened,quicker than the eye could follow. Jack jerked the lariat sideways and plunged forward. A bullet crashed into the wall of the dugout.
The cowboy's shoulder pinned the little man against the bolted door. One hand gave a quick wrench to the wrist of the right arm and the revolver clattered to the puncheon floor. The two hands of the jailer, under pressure, came together. Round them the rope wound swiftly.
"I've got you, Yorky. No use strugglin'. I don't want to start that misery in yore shoulder," warned Jack.
The little saddler, tears of mortification in his eyes, relaxed from his useless efforts. Jack had no intention of humiliating him and he proceeded casually to restore his self-respect.
"You made a good fight, Yorky,—a blamed good fight. I won out by a trick, or I never could 'a' done it. Listen, old-timer. I plumb had to play this low-down trick on you. Homer Dinsmore saved Miss Wadley from the 'Paches. He treated her like a white man an' risked his life for her. She's my friend. Do you reckon I'd ought to let him hang?"
"Whyn't you tell me all that?" complained the manhandled jailer.
"Because you're such a tender-hearted old geezer, Yorky. Like as not you would 'a' thrown open the door an' told me to take him. You had to make a fight to keep him so they couldn't sayyou were in cahoots with me. I'm goin' to jail for this an' I don't want comp'ny."
Jack trussed up his friend comfortably with the slack of the rope so that he could move neither hands nor feet.
From the nail upon which the two keys hung the jail-breaker selected one. He shot back the bolts of the inner door and turned the key.