CHAPTER XIHAGAR’S EYES
Randerson had been in no hurry to make an attempt to catch the rustlers whose depredations he had reported to Ruth. He had told the men to be doubly alert to their work, and he had hired two new men—from the Diamond H—to replace those who had left the Flying W. His surmise that they wanted to join Chavis had been correct, for the two new men—whom he had put on special duty and had been given permission to come and go when they pleased—had reported this fact to him. There was nothing to do, however, but to wait, in the hope that one day the rustlers would attempt to run cattle off when one or more of the men happened to be in the vicinity. And then, if the evidence against the rustlers were convincing enough, much would depend on the temper of himself and the men as to whether Ruth’s orders that there should be no hanging would be observed. There would be time enough to decide that question if any rustlers were caught.
He had seen little of the Easterner during the past two or three weeks. Masten rarely showed himself on the range any more—to Randerson’s queries about him the men replied that they hadn’t seen him. But Randerson was thinking very little about Masten as he rode through the brilliant sunshine this afternoon. He was going again to Catherson’s, to see Hagar. Recollections of the change that had come over the girl were disquieting, and he wanted to talk to her again to determine whether she really had changed, or whether he had merely fancied it.
Far down the river he crossed at a shallow ford, entered a section of timber, and loped Patches slowly through this. He found a trail that he had used several times before, when he had been working for the Diamond H and necessity or whim had sent him this way, and rode it, noting that it seemed to have been used much, lately.
“I reckon old Abe’s poundin’ his horses considerable. Why, it’s right plain,” he added, after a little reflection, “this here trail runs into the Lazette trail, down near the ford. An’ Abe’s wearin’ it out, ridin’ to Lazette for red-eye. I reckon if I was Abe, I’d quit while the quittin’sgood.” He laughed, patting Patches’ shoulder. “Shucks, a man c’n see another man’s faults pretty far, but his own is pretty near invisible. You’ve rode the Lazette trail a heap, too, Patches,” he said, “when your boss was hittin’ red-eye. We ain’t growin’ no angels’ wings, Patches, which would give us the right to go to criticizin’ others.”
Presently he began to ride with more caution, for he wanted to surprise Hagar. A quarter of a mile from the cabin he brought Patches to a halt on a little knoll and looked about him. He had a good view of the cabin in the clearing, and he watched it long, for signs of life. He saw no such signs.
“Abe’s out putterin’ around, an’ Hagar’s nappin’, I reckon—or tryin’ on her new dresses,” he added as an after-thought.
He was about to ride on, when a sound reached his ears, and he drew the reins tight on Patches and sat rigid, alert, listening.
The perfect silence of the timber was unbroken. He had almost decided that his ears had played him a trick when the sound came again, nearer than before—the sound of voices. Quickly and accurately he determined from which directionthey came, and he faced that way, watching a narrow path that led through the timber to a grass plot not over a hundred feet from him, from which he was screened by some thick-growing brush at his side.
He grinned, fully expecting to see Abe and Hagar on the path presently. “Abe’s behavin’ today,” he told himself as he waited. “I’ll sure surprise them, if—”
Suddenly he drew his breath sharply, his teeth came together viciously, and his brows drew to a frown, his eyes gleaming coldly underneath. For he saw Willard Masten coming along the path, smiling and talking, and beside him, his arm around her waist, also smiling, but with her head bent forward a little, was Hagar Catherson.
The color slowly left Randerson’s face as he watched. He had no nice scruples about eavesdropping at this moment—here was no time for manners; the cold, contemptuous rage that fought within him was too deep and gripping to permit of any thought that would not center about the two figures on the path. He watched them, screened by the brush, with the deadly concentration of newly aroused murder-lust. Once, as he saw them halt at the edge of the grass plot, andhe observed Masten draw Hagar close to him and kiss her, his right hand dropped to the butt of his pistol at his right hip, and he fingered it uncertainly. He drew the hand away at last, though, with a bitter, twisting smile.
Five minutes later, his face still stony and expressionless, he dismounted lightly and with infinite care and caution led Patches away from the knoll and far back into the timber. When he was certain there was no chance of his being seen or heard by Masten and Hagar, he mounted, urged Patches forward and made a wide detour which brought him at length to the path which had been followed by Masten and Hagar in reaching the grass plot. He loped the pony along this path, and presently he came upon them—Hagar standing directly in the path, watching him, red with embarrassment which she was trying hard to conceal; Masten standing on the grass plot near her, staring into the timber opposite; Randerson, trying to appear unconcerned and making a failure of it.
“It’s Rex!” ejaculated the girl. Her hands had been clasped in front of her; they dropped to her sides when she saw Randerson, and her fingers began to twist nervously into the edges ofher apron. A deep breath, which was almost a sigh of relief, escaped her. “I thought it was Dad!” she said.
Evidently Masten had likewise expected the horseman to be her father, for at her exclamation he turned swiftly. His gaze met Randerson’s, his shoulders sagged a little, his eyes wavered and shifted from the steady ones that watched him.
His composure returned quickly, however, and he smiled blandly, but there was a trace of derision in his voice:
“You’ve strayed off your range, haven’t you, Randerson?” he said smoothly.
“Why, I reckon I have.” Randerson’s voice was low, almost gentle, and he smiled mildly at Hagar, who blushingly returned it but immediately looked downward.
“I expect dad must be gone somewhere—that you’re lookin’ for him,” Randerson said. “I thought mebbe I’d ketch him here.”
“He went to Red Rock this mornin’,” said the girl. She looked up, and this time met Randerson’s gaze with more confidence, for his pretense of casualness had set her fears at rest. “Mr. Masten come over to see him, too.”
The lie came hesitatingly through her lips.She looked at Masten as though for confirmation, and the latter nodded.
“Catherson is hard to catch,” he said. “I’ve been over here a number of times, trying to see him.” His voice was a note too high, and Randerson wondered whether, without the evidence of his eyes, he would have suspected Masten. He decided that he would, and his smile was a trifle grim.
“I reckon Catherson is a regular dodger,” he returned. “He’s always gallivantin’ around the country when somebody wants to see him.” He smiled gently at Hagar, with perhaps just a little pity.
“It’s getting along in the afternoon, Hagar,” he said. “Dad ought to be amblin’ back here before long.” His face grew grave at the frightened light in her eyes when he continued: “I reckon me an’ Masten better wait for him, so’s he won’t dodge us any more.” He cast a glance around him. “Where’s your cayuse?” he said to Masten.
“I left him down near the ford,” returned the other.
“Right on your way back to the Flyin’ W,” said Randerson, as though the discovery pleasedhim. “I’m goin’ to the Flyin’ W, too, soon as I see Catherson. I reckon, if you two ain’t got no particular yearnin’ to go prowlin’ around in the timber any longer, we’ll all go back to Catherson’s shack an’ wait for him there. Three’ll be company, while it’d be mighty lonesome for one.”
Masten cleared his throat and looked intently at Randerson’s imperturbable face. Did he know anything? A vague unrest seized Masten. Involuntarily he shivered, and his voice was a little hoarse when he spoke, though he attempted to affect carelessness:
“I don’t think I will wait for Catherson,” he said, “I can see him tomorrow, just as well.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” drawled Randerson. “After waitin’ this long, too! But I reckon you’re right; it wouldn’t be no use waitin’. I’ll go too, I reckon. We’ll ride to the Flyin’ W together.”
“I don’t want to force my company on you, Randerson,” laughed Masten nervously. “Besides, I had thought of taking the river trail—back toward Lazette, you know.”
Randerson looked at him with a cold smile. “The Lazette trail suits me too,” he said; “we’ll go that way.”
Masten looked at him again. The smile on Randerson’s face was inscrutable. And now the pallor left Masten’s cheeks and was succeeded by a color that burned. For he now was convinced and frightened. He heard Randerson speaking to Hagar, and so gentle was his voice that it startled him, so great was the contrast between it and the slumbering threat in his eyes and manner:
“Me an’ Masten is goin’ to make a short cut over to where his horse is, Hagar; we’ve changed our minds about goin’ to the shack with you. We’ve decided that we’re goin’ to talk over that business that he come here about—not botherin’ your dad with it.” His lips straightened at the startled, dreading look that sprang into her eyes. “Dad ain’t goin’ to know, girl,” he assured her gravely. “I’d never tell him. You go back to the shack an’ pitch into your work, sort of forgettin’ that you ever saw Mr. Masten. For he’s goin’ away tonight, an’ he ain’t comin’ back.”
Hagar covered her face with her hands and sank into the grass beside the path, crying.
“By God, Randerson!” blustered Masten, “what do you mean? This is going too—”
A look silenced him—choked the words in histhroat, and he turned without protest, at Randerson’s jerk of the head toward the ford, and walked without looking back, Randerson following on Patches.
When they reached the narrow path that led to the crossing, just before entering the brush Randerson looked back. Hagar was still lying in the grass near the path. A patch of sunlight shone on her, and so clear was the light that Randerson could plainly see the spasmodic movement of her shoulders. His teeth clenched tightly, and the muscles of his face corded as they had done in the Flying W ranchhouse the day that Aunt Martha had told him of Pickett’s attack on Ruth.
He watched silently while Masten got on his horse, and then, still silent, he followed as Masten rode down the path, across the river, through the break in the canyon wall and up the slope that led to the plains above. When they reached a level space in some timber that fringed the river, Masten attempted to urge his horse through it, but was brought to a halt by Randerson’s voice:
“We’ll get off here, Masten.”
Masten turned, his face red with wrath.
“Look here, Randerson,” he bellowed; “this ridiculous nonsense has gone far enough. I know,now, that you were spying on us. I don’t know why, unless you’d selected the girl yourself—”
“That’s ag’in you too,” interrupted Randerson coldly. “You’re goin’ to pay.”
“You’re making a lot of fuss about the girl,” sneered Masten. “A man—”
“You’re a heap careless with words that you don’t know the meanin’ of,” said Randerson. “We don’t raise men out here that do things like you do. An’ I expect you’re one in a million. They all can’t be like you, back East; if they was, the East would go to hell plenty rapid. Get off your horse!”
Masten demurred, and Randerson’s big pistol leaped into his hand. His voice came at the same instant, intense and vibrant:
“It don’t make no difference to mehowyou get off!”
He watched Masten get down, and then he slid to the ground himself, the pistol still in hand, and faced Masten, with only three or four feet of space separating them.
Masten had been watching him with wide, fearing eyes, and at the menace of his face when he dismounted Masten shrank back a step.
“Good Heavens, man, do you mean to shootme?” he said, the words faltering and scarcely audible.
“I reckon shootin’ would be too good for you.” Again Randerson’s face had taken on that peculiar stony expression. Inexorable purpose was written on it; what he was to do he was in no hurry to be about, but it would be done in good time.
“I ain’t never claimed to be no angel,” he said. “I reckon I’m about the average, an’ I’ve fell before temptation same as other men. But I’ve drawed the line where you’ve busted over it. Mebbe if it was some other girl, I wouldn’t feel it like I do about Hagar. But when I tell you that I’ve knowed that girl for about five years, an’ that there wasn’t a mean thought in her head until you brought your dirty carcass to her father’s shack, an’ that to me she’s a kid in spite of her long dresses and her newfangled furbelows, you’ll understand a heap about how I feel right now. Get your paws up, for I’m goin’ to thrash you so bad that your own mother won’t know you—if she’s so misfortunate as to be alive to look at you! After that, you’re goin’ to hit the breeze out of this country, an’ if I ever lay eyes on you ag’in I’ll go gunnin’ for you!”
While he had been speaking he had holsteredthe pistol, unstrapped his cartridge belt and let guns and belt fall to the ground. Then without warning he drove a fist at Masten’s face.
The Easterner dodged the blow, evaded him, and danced off, his face alight with a venomous joy. For the dreaded guns were out of Randerson’s reach, he was a fair match for Randerson in weight, though Randerson towered inches above him; he had had considerable experience in boxing at his club in the East, and he had longed for an opportunity to avenge himself for the indignity that had been offered him at Calamity. Besides, he had a suspicion that Ruth’s refusal to marry before the fall round-up had been largely due to a lately discovered liking for the man who was facing him.
“I fancy you’ll have your work cut out for you, you damned meddler!” he sneered as he went in swiftly, with a right and left, aimed at Randerson’s face.
The blows landed, but seemingly had no effect, for Randerson merely gritted his teeth and pressed forward. In his mind was a picture of a girl whom he had “dawdled” on his knee—a “kid” that he had played with, as a brother might have played with a younger sister.
CHAPTER XIITHE RUSTLERS
At about the time Randerson was crossing the river near the point where the path leading to Catherson’s shack joined the Lazette trail, Ruth Harkness was loping her pony rapidly toward him. They passed each other within a mile, but both were unconscious of this fact, for Randerson was riding in the section of timber that he had entered immediately after crossing the river, and Ruth was concealed from his view by a stretch of intervening brush and trees.
Ruth had been worried more than she would have been willing to admit, over the presence of Chavis and his two men in the vicinity, and that morning after she had questioned a puncher about the former Flying W foreman, she had determined to ride down the river for the purpose of making a long distance observation of the “shack” the puncher and Randerson had mentioned as being inhabited by Chavis. That determination had not been acted upon until after dinner, however, andit was nearly two o’clock when she reached the ford where she had passed Randerson.
The puncher had told her that Chavis’ shack was about fifteen miles distant from the Flying W ranchhouse, and situated in a little basin near the river, which could be approached only by riding down a rock-strewn and dangerous declivity. She had no intention of risking the descent; she merely wanted to view the place from afar, and she judged that from the edge of a plateau, which the puncher had described to her, she would be able to see very well.
When she passed the ford near the Lazette trail, she felt a sudden qualm of misgiving, for she had never ridden quite that far alone—the ford was about ten miles from the ranchhouse—but she smiled at the sensation, conquering it, and continued on her way, absorbed in the panoramic view of the landscape.
At a distance of perhaps a mile beyond the ford she halted the pony on the crest of a low hill and looked about her. The country at this point was broken and rocky; there was much sand; the line of hills, of which the one on which her pony stood was a part, were barren and uninviting. There was much cactus. She made a grimace of abhorrenceat a clump that grew near her in an arid stretch, and then looked beyond it at a stretch of green. Far away on a gentle slope she saw some cattle, and looking longer, she observed a man on a horse. One of the Flying W men, of course, she assured herself, and felt more secure.
She rode on again, following a ridge, the pony stepping gingerly. Another half mile and she urged the pony down into a slight depression where the footing was better. The animal made good progress here, and after a while they struck a level, splotched with dry bunch-grass, which rustled noisily under the tread of the pony’s hoofs.
It was exhilarating here, for presently the level became a slope, and the slope merged into another level which paralleled the buttes along the river, and she could see for miles on the other side of the stream, a vista of plain and hills and mountains and forest so alluring in its virgin wildness; so vast, big, and silent a section that it awed her.
When she saw the sun swimming just above the peaks of some mountains in the dim distance, she began to have some doubts of the wisdom of making the trip, but she pressed on, promising herself that she would have a brief look at the shack and the basin, and then immediately return. Shehad expected to make much better time than she had made. Also, she had not anticipated that a fifteen-mile ride would tire her so. But she believed that it was not the ride so far, but the prospect of another fifteen-mile ride to return, that appalled her—for she had ridden much since her coming to the Flying W, and was rather hardened to it. In one of his letters to her, her uncle had stated that his men often rode sixty miles in a day, and that he remembered one ride of ninety miles, which a cowpuncher had made with the same pony in twenty-two hours of straight riding. He had told her that the tough little plains pony could go any distance that its rider was able to “fork” it. She believed that, for the little animal under her had never looked tired when she had ridden him to the ranchhouse at the end of a hard day.
But these recollections did not console her, and she urged the pony on, into a gallop that took her over the ground rapidly.
At last, as she was swept around a bend in the plateau, she saw spreading beneath her a little valley, green-carpeted, beautiful. A wood rose near the river, and at its edge she saw what she had come to see—Chavis’ shack.
And now she realized that for all the knowledge that a look at Chavis’ shack would give her, she might as well have stayed at the Flying W. She didn’t know just what she had expected to see when she got here, but what she did see was merely the building, a small affair with a flat roof, the spreading valley itself, and several steers grazing in it.
There were no other signs of life. She got off the pony and walked to the edge of the plateau, discovering that the valley was much shallower than she thought it would be, and that at her side, to the left, was the declivity that the puncher had told her about. She leaned over the edge and looked at it.
It was not so steep as she had expected when listening to the puncher’s description of it. But she thought it looked dangerous. At the point from which she viewed it, it was not more than fifteen or twenty feet below her. It cut into the plateau, running far back and doubling around toward her, and the stretch below her, that was within range of her eyes, was almost level. The wall of the cut on which she stood was ragged and uneven, with some scraggly brush thrusting out between the crevices of rocks, and about ten feetdown was a flat rock, like a ledge, that projected several feet out over the level below.
She was about to turn, for she had seen all she cared to see, when an impulse of curiosity urged her to crane her neck to attempt to peer around a shoulder of the cut where it doubled back. She started and turned pale, not so much from fright as with surprise, for she saw a horse’s head projecting around the shoulder of the cut, and the animal was looking directly at her. As she drew back, her breath coming fast, the animal whinnied gently.
Almost instantly, she heard a man’s voice:
“My cayuse is gettin’ tired of loafin’, I reckon.” Ruth held her breath. The voice seemed to come from beneath her feet—she judged that it really had come from beneath the rock that projected from the wall of the cut below her. And it was Chavis’ voice!
Of course, he would not be talking to himself, and therefore there must be another man with him. At the risk of detection, and filled with an overwhelming curiosity to hear more she kneeled at the edge of the cut and listened intently, first making sure that the horse she had seen could not see her.
“I reckon Linton didn’t pull it off—or them Flyin’ W guys are stickin’ close to the herd,” said another voice. “He ought to have been here an hour ago.”
“Linton ain’t no rusher,” said Chavis. “We’ll wait.”
There was a silence. Then Chavis spoke again:
“Flyin’ W stock is particular easy to run off. Did I tell you? B—— told me”—Ruth did not catch the name, she thought it might have been Bennet, or Ben—“that the girl had give orders that anyone ketched runnin’ off Flyin’ W stock wasn’t to be hung!” Ruth heard him chuckle. “Easy boss, eh, Kester?” He sneered. “Ketch that damned Flyin’ W outfit hangin’ anybody!”
Kester was one of the men who had quit the day that Ruth had met Randerson, when the latter had been riding in for the money due them. It did not surprise Ruth to discover that Kester was with Chavis, for Randerson had told her what might be expected of him. Linton was the other man.
Nor did it surprise Ruth to hear Chavis talking of stealing the Flying W stock. But it angeredher to discover that her humane principles were being ridiculed; she was so incensed at Chavis that she felt she could remain to hear him no longer, and she got up, her face red, her eyes flashing, to go to her pony.
But the pony was nowhere in sight. She remembered now, her heart sinking with a sudden, vague fear, that she had neglected to trail the reins over the animal’s head, as she had been instructed to do by the puncher who had gentled the pony for her; he had told her that no western horse, broken by an experienced rider, would stray with a dragging rein.
She gave a quick, frightened glance around. She could see clearly to the broken section of country through which she had passed some time before, and her glance went to the open miles of grass land that stretched south of her. The pony had not gone that way, either. Trembling from a sudden weakness, but driven by the urge of stern necessity, she advanced cautiously to the edge of the cut again and looked over.
Her pony was standing on the level below her, almost in front of the rock under which had been Chavis and Kester! It had evidently just gone down there, for at the instant she looked over theedge of the cut she saw Chavis and Kester running toward it, muttering with surprise.
For one wild, awful instant, Ruth felt that she would faint, for the world reeled around her in dizzying circles. A cold dread that seized her senses helped her to regain control of herself presently, however, and scarcely breathing she stole behind some dense weeds at the edge of the cut, murmuring a prayer of thankfulness for their presence.
What Chavis and Kester had said upon seeing the pony, she had not heard. But now she saw crafty smiles on their faces; Chavis’ was transfigured by an expression that almost drew a cry of horror from her. Through the weeds she could see their forms, and even hear the subdued exclamation from Chavis:
“It’s the girl’s cayuse, sure. I’d know it if I saw it in the Cannibal islands. I reckon she’s been snoopin’ around here somewheres, an’ it’s sloped! Why, Kester!” he cried, standing erect and drawing great, long breaths, his eyes blazing with passion as for an instant she saw them as they swept along the edge of the cut, “I’d swing for a kiss from them lips of hers!”
“You’re a fool!” declared Kester. “Let thewomen alone! I never knowed a man to monkey with one yet, that he didn’t get the worst of it.”
Chavis paid no attention to this remonstrance. He seized Ruth’s pony by the bridle and began to lead it up the slope toward the plateau. Kester laid a restraining hand on his arm. He spoke rapidly; he seemed to have become, in a measure, imbued with the same passion that had taken possession of Chavis.
“Leave the cayuse here; she’ll be huntin’ for it, directly; she’ll come right down here. Give her time.”
Chavis, however, while he obeyed the suggestion about leaving the pony where it was, did not follow Kester’s suggestion about waiting, but began to run up the slope toward the plateau, scrambling and muttering. And Kester, after a short instant of silent contemplation, followed him.
Ruth no longer trembled. She knew that if she was to escape from the two men she would have to depend entirely upon her own wit and courage, and in this crisis she was cool and self-possessed. She waited until she saw the two men vanish behind the shoulder of the cut where she had seen the horse’s head, and then sheclambered over the edge of the wall, grasping some gnarled branches, and letting herself slide quickly down. In an instant she felt her feet come in contact with the flat rock under which the men had been when she had first heard them talking. It seemed a great distance to the ground from the rock, but she took the jump bravely, not even shutting her eyes. She landed on all fours and pitched headlong, face down, in the dust, but was up instantly and running toward her pony.
Seizing the bridle, she looped it through her arm, and then, pulling at the animal, she ran to where the horses of the two men stood, watching her, and snorting with astonishment and fright. With hands that trembled more than a little, she threw the reins over their heads, so that they might not drag, and then, using the quirt, dangling from her wrist by a rawhide thong, she turned their heads toward the declivity and lashed them furiously. She watched them as they went helter-skelter, down into the valley, and then with a smile that might have been grim if it had not been so quavering, she mounted her own animal and rode it cautiously up the slope toward the plateau.
As she reached the plateau, her head rising above its edge, she saw that Chavis and Kester were a good quarter of a mile from her and running toward some timber a few hundred yards beyond them.
With a laugh that was almost derisive, Ruth whipped her pony and sent it flying over the plateau at an angle that took her almost directly away from the running men. She had been riding only a minute or two, however, when she heard a shout, and saw that the men had stopped and were facing in her direction, waving their hands at her. They looked grotesque—like jumping jacks—in the sudden twilight that had fallen, and she could not withhold a smile of triumph. It did not last long, for she saw the men begin to run again, this time toward the cut, and she urged her pony to additional effort, fearful that the men might gain their ponies and overtake her.
And now that the men were behind her, she squared her pony toward the trail over which she had ridden to come here, determined to follow it, for she felt that she knew it better than any other.
The pony ran well, covering the ground with long, agile jumps. For about two miles she heldit to its rapid pace, and then, looking backward for the first time she saw the plateau, vast, dark and vacant, behind her, and she drew the pony down, for she had come to the stretch of broken country and realized that she must be careful.
She shuddered as she looked at the darkening world in front of her. Never had it seemed so dismal, so empty, and at the same time so full of lurking danger. The time which precedes the onrush of darkness is always a solemn one; it was doubly solemn to Ruth, alone, miles from home, with a known danger behind her and unknown dangers awaiting her.
Fifteen miles! She drew a long breath as the pony scampered along; anxiously she scanned the plains to the south and in front of her for signs of Flying W cattle or men. The cattle and horseman that she had previously seen, far over on the slope, had vanished, and it looked so dismal and empty over there that she turned her head and shivered.
There seemed to be nothing in front of her but space and darkness. She wondered, gulping, whether Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha were worried about her. They would be, of course, for she had never stayed like this before. But, shethought, with a pulse of joy, they would be lighting the lamps presently, and when she got to the big level beyond the ford, she would be able to see the lights, and the sight of them would make her feel better. She had never realized before how companionable a horse felt, and as her pony ran on, she began to give some attention to his work, noting how his muscles rippled and contracted, how his sides heaved, with what regularity his legs moved. Involuntarily, she felt of his shoulder—it was moist, and the muscles under the smooth hair writhed like living things. She laughed, almost hysterically, for the touch made her feel that she was not alone—she was with the most faithful of man’s friends, and she knew that the little animal under her would do his best for her—would run himself to death in her service, if she insisted.
She had a glorious start over her pursuers. They would never catch her. Twice, after she entered the broken stretch she looked back, but could see no sign of them. She did not know that at that moment Chavis and Kester, enraged and disgusted over the trick she had played on them, were riding slowly through the valley toward their shack.
She was almost through the broken stretch when the pony stumbled. She pulled quickly on the reins, and the pony straightened. But instantly she felt its forelegs stiffen, felt it slide; the thought came to her that it must have slid on a flat rock or a treacherous stretch of lava. It struggled like a cat, to recover its balance, grunting and heaving with the effort, but went down, finally, sideways, throwing her out of the saddle.
She had anticipated the fall and had got her feet out of the stirrups, and she alighted standing, braced for the shock. Her left foot struck the top of a jagged rock, slipped, doubled under her, and she felt a sharp, agonizing pain in the ankle. For a moment she paid no attention to it, however, being more concerned for the pony, but when she noted that the animal had got up, seemingly none the worse for the fall, she suddenly realized that the ankle pained her terribly, and she hopped over to a flat rock and sat on it, to examine the injury. She worked the ankle rapidly back and forth, each movement bringing tears to her eyes. She had almost forgotten about her pursuers, and when she thought of them she got up and limped toward the pony,which had wandered a little away from where it had fallen.
And now the pony, which had performed so nobly for her during the miles she had ridden to reach this spot, suddenly seemed determined to undo all his service by yielding to a whim to avoid capture.
She tried threats, flattery, cajolery. Twice more she hobbled painfully near him, and each time he unconcernedly walked away. The third time, he allowed her to come very close, and just when she felt that success was very near, he snorted with pretended fright, wheeled, and slashed out with both hoofs at her and galloped off a full quarter of a mile. She could see him standing and looking at her, his ears erect, before the darkness blotted him from view altogether.
She tried again, groping her way painfully over rocks, slipping, stumbling, holding her breath from fear of snakes—but she could not find the pony. And then, white, shaking, clammy from her dread of the darkness, the awesome silence, and the possibility of Chavis and Kester finding her here, she groped blindly until she found a big rock rising high above its fellows, and after a struggle during which she tore the skinfrom her hands and knees, she climbed to its top and crouched on it, shuddering and crying. And she thought of Randerson; of his seriousness and his earnestness when he had said:
“I reckon you don’t know hate or fear or desperation.... Out here things run loose, an’ if you stay here long enough, some day you’ll meet them an’ recognize them for your own—an’ you’ll wonder how you ever got along without them.”
Well, she hated now; she hated everything—the country included—with a bitterness that, she felt, would never die. And she had felt fear, too, and desperation. She felt them now, and more, she felt a deep humility, and she felt a genuine respect for Randerson—a respect which more than counterbalanced her former repugnance toward him for the killing of Pickett. For she knew that a while ago, if she had had a pistol with her, she would have killed Chavis and Kester without hesitation.
CHAPTER XIIITHE FIGHT
At about the time that Chavis and Kester had discovered Ruth’s pony and had clambered up the slope in search of the girl, the two figures on the timber-fringed level near the break in the canyon wall were making grotesque shadows as they danced about in the dying sunlight.
Masten’s science had served him well. He had been able, so far, to evade many of Randerson’s heavy blows, but some of them had landed. They had hurt, too, and had taken some of the vigor out of their target, though Masten was still elusive as he circled, with feet that dragged a little, feinting and probing for openings through which he might drive his fists.
A great many of his blows had reached their mark also. Randerson’s face was covered with livid lumps and welts. But he seemed not to mind them, to be unconscious of them, for on his lips was still the dogged smile that had reached themsoon after the fight had started, and in his eyes was the same look of cold deliberation and unrelenting purpose.
He had spoken no word since the fight began; he had taken Masten’s heaviest punches without sign or sound to indicate that they had landed, always crowding forward, carrying the battle to his adversary, refusing to yield a step when to yield meant to evade punishment. Passion, deep and gripping, had made him for the moment an insensate automaton; he was devoid of any feeling except a consuming desire to punish the despoiler of his “kid.”
But he was holding this passion in check; he was its master—it had not mastered him; he had made it a vassal to his deliberation. To have unleashed it all at once would have made him too eager, would have weakened him. He had chosen this punishment for Masten, and he would see that it was sufficient.
But, as Randerson had well known, Masten was no mean opponent. He stepped in and out rapidly, his blows lacking something in force through his inability to set himself. But he landed more often than Randerson; he blocked and covered cleverly; he ducked blows that would haveended the fight had they struck him with their full force.
Masten had been full of confidence when the fight started. Some of that confidence had gone now. He was beginning to realize that he could not beat Randerson with jabs and stinging counters that hurt without deadening the flesh where they struck; nor could he hope to wear the Westerner down and finally finish him. And with this realization came a pulse of fear. He began to take more risks, to set himself more firmly on his feet in order to give his blows greater force when they landed. For he felt his own strength waning, and he knew what the end would be, should he no longer be able to hold Randerson off.
He went in now with a left jab, and instead of dancing back to avoid Randerson’s counter, he covered with the left, swiftly drawn back from the jab, and hooked his right to Randerson’s face. The blow landed heavily on Randerson’s jaw, shaking him from head to foot. But he shook his head as though to dissipate the effect of it, and came after Masten grimly. Again Masten tried the maneuver, and the jab went home accurately, with force. But when he essayed todrive in the right, it was blocked, and Randerson’s right, crooked, rigid, sent with the force of a battering ram, landed fairly on Masten’s mouth, with deadening, crushing effect.
It staggered Masten, sent him back several feet, and his legs shook under him, sagging limply. His lips, where the blow had landed, were smashed, gaping hideously, red-stained. Randerson was after him relentlessly. Masten dared not clinch, for no rules of boxing governed this fight, and he knew that if he accepted rough and tumble tactics he would be beaten quickly. So he trusted to his agility, which, though waning, answered well until he recovered from the effects of the blow.
And then, with the realization that he was weakening, that the last blow had hurt him badly, came to Masten the sickening knowledge that Randerson was fighting harder than ever. He paid no attention to Masten’s blows, not even attempting to fend them off, but bored in, swinging viciously. His blows were landing now; they left deadened flesh and paralyzed muscles as marks of their force.
Masten began to give way. Half a dozen times he broke ground, or slipped to one side orthe other. It was unavailing. Blows were coming at him now from all angles, ripping, tearing, crashing blows that seemed to increase in force as the fight went on. One of them caught Masten just below the ear on the right side. He reeled and went to his haunches, and dizzy, nauseated, he sat for an instant, trying to fix the world correctly in his vision, for it was all awry—trees, the plains, himself—all were dancing. Dimly he sensed the form of Randerson looming over him. He still was able to grasp the danger that menaced him, and reeling, he threw himself headlong, to escape Randerson, landing on his side on the ground, and with an inarticulate shriek of fury, he pulled the small caliber pistol from his hip pocket, aimed it at the shadowy form of his adversary and pressed the trigger.
And then it seemed that an avalanche had struck him; that he was whirled along by it, then buried under it.
Evidently he had been buried for a long time, for when he opened his eyes the dense blackness of the Western night had descended. He felt a dull, heavy pain in his right wrist, and he raised it—it seemed to have been crushed. He laid the hand down again, with a groan, and then heheard a voice. Looking up, he saw the shadowy figure of his conqueror standing over him.
“I reckon I’ve handed it to you pretty bad,” said Randerson. “But you had it comin’ to you. If you hadn’t tried to play the skunk at the last minute, you’d have got off easier. I reckon your hand ain’t so active as it’s been—I had to pretty near stamp it off of you—you would keep pullin’ the trigger of that pop-gun. Do you reckon you c’n get up now, an’ get on your horse?”
Masten felt himself lifted; he did not resist. Then he felt the saddle under him; he made an effort and steadied himself. Then, still only half conscious he rode, reeling in the saddle, toward a light that he saw in the distance, which, he dimly felt, must come from the Flying W ranchhouse.
CHAPTER XIVTHE ROCK AND THE MOONLIGHT
Randerson did not leave the scene of the fight immediately. He stood for a long time, after buckling on his belt and pistols, looking meditatively toward the break in the canyon beyond which was Catherson’s shack.
“Did the dresses have anything to do with it?” he asked himself, standing there in the darkness. “New dresses might have—puttin’ foolish notions in her head. But I reckon the man—” He laughed grimly. He had thought it all over before, back there on the path when he had been talking to Masten and Hagar. He reflected again on it now. “Lookin’ it square in the face, it’s human nature. We’ll allow that. We’ll say a man has feelin’s. But a man ought to have sense, too—or he ain’t a man. If Masten was a boy, now, not realizin’, there’d be excuses. But he’s wised up.... If his intentions had been honorable—but he’s engaged to Ruth, an’ they couldn’t. I reckon he’ll pull hisfreight now. Catherson would sure muss him up some.”
He mounted his pony and rode toward the Flying W ranchhouse. Halfway there he passed Masten. The moon had risen; by its light he could see the Easterner, who had halted his horse and was standing beside it, watching him. Randerson paid no heed to him.
“Thinkin’ it over, I reckon,” he decided, as he rode on. Looking back, when he reached the house, he saw that Masten was still standing beside his horse.
At the sound of hoof beats, Uncle Jepson came out on the porch and peered at the rider. Randerson could see Aunt Martha close behind him. Uncle Jepson was excited. He started off the porch toward Randerson.
“It’s Randerson, mother!” he called shrilly back to Aunt Martha, who was now on the porch.
In a brief time Randerson learned that Ruth had gone riding—alone—about noon, and had not returned. Randerson also discovered that the girl had questioned a puncher who had ridden in—asking him about Chavis’ shack and the basin. Randerson’s face, red from the blows that had landed on it, paled quickly.
“I reckon she’s takin’ her time about comin’ in,” he said. “Mebbe her cayuse has broke a leg—or somethin’.” He grinned at Uncle Jepson. “I expect there ain’t nothin’ to worry about. I’ll go look for her.”
He climbed slowly into the saddle, and with a wave of the hand to the elderly couple rode his pony down past the bunkhouse at a pace that was little faster than a walk. He urged Patches to slightly greater speed as he skirted the corral fence, but once out on the plains he loosened the reins, spoke sharply to the pony and began to ride in earnest.
Patches responded nobly to the grim note in his master’s voice. With stretching neck and flying hoofs he swooped with long, smooth undulations that sent him, looking like a splotched streak, splitting the night. He ran at his own will, his rider tall and loose in the saddle, speaking no further word, but thinking thoughts that narrowed his eyes, made them glint with steely hardness whenever the moonlight struck them, and caused his lips to part, showing the clenched teeth between them, and shoved his chin forward with the queer set that marks the fighting man.
For he did not believe that Ruth’s pony hadbroken a leg. She had gone to see Chavis’ shack, and Chavis—
One mile, two, three, four; Patches covered them in a mad riot of recklessness. Into depressions, over rises, leaping rocks and crashing through chaparral clumps, scaring rattlers, scorpions, toads, and other denizens to wild flight, he went, with not a thought for his own or his rider’s safety, knowing from the ring in his master’s voice that speed, and speed alone, was wanted from him.
After a five mile run he was pulled down. He felt the effects of the effort, but he was well warmed to his work now and he loped, though with many a snort of impatience and toss of the head, by which he tried to convey to his master his eagerness to be allowed to have his will.
On the crest of a hill he was drawn to a halt, while Randerson scanned the country around him. Then, when the word came again to go, he was off with a rush and a snort of delight, as wildly reckless as he had been when he had discovered what was expected of him.
They flashed by the ford near the Lazette trail; along a ridge, the crest of which was hard and barren, making an ideal speedway; they sankinto a depression with sickening suddenness, went out of it with a clatter, and then went careening over a level until they reached a broken stretch where speed would mean certain death to both.
Patches was determined to risk it, but suddenly he was pulled in and forced to face the other way. And what he saw must have made him realize that his wild race was ended, for he deflated his lungs shrilly, and relaxed himself for a rest.
Randerson had seen her first. She was sitting on the top of a gigantic rock not more than fifty feet from him; she was facing him, had evidently been watching him; and in the clear moonlight he could see that she was pale and frightened—frightened at him, he knew, fearful that he might not be a friend.
This impression came to him simultaneously with her cry—shrill with relief and joy: “Oh, it’s Patches! It’s Randerson!” And then she suddenly stiffened and stretched out flat on the top of the rock.
He lifted her down and carried her, marveling at her lightness, to a clump of bunch-grass near by, and worked, trying to revive her, until she struggled and sat up. She looked once at him,her eyes wide, her gaze intent, as though she wanted to be sure that it was really he, and then she drew a long, quavering breath and covered her face with her hands.
“Oh,” she said; “it was horrible!” She uncovered her face and looked up at him. “Why,” she added, “I have been here since before dark! And it must be after midnight, now!”
“It’s about nine. Where’s your horse?”
“Gone,” she said dolorously. “He fell—over there—and threw me. I saw Chavis—and Kester—over on the mesa. I thought they would come after me, and I hurried. Then my pony fell. I’ve hurt my ankle—and I couldn’t catch him—my pony, I mean; he was too obstinate—I could have killed him! I couldn’t walk, you know—my ankle, and the snakes—and the awful darkness, and—Oh, Randerson,” she ended, with a gulp of gratitude, “I never was so glad to see you—anybody—in my life!”
“I reckon itwaskind of lonesome for you out here alone with the snakes, an’ the dark, an’ things.”
She was over her scare now, he knew—as he was over his fears for her, and he grinned with a humor brought on by a revulsion of feeling.
“I reckon mebbe the snakes would have bothered you some,” he added, “for they’re natural mean. But I reckon the moon made such an awful darkness on purpose to scare you.”
“How can you joke about it?” she demanded resentfully.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said with quick contrition. “You see, I was glad to find you. An’ you’re all right now, you know.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, quickly forgiving. “I suppose Iama coward.”
“Why, no, ma’am, I reckon you ain’t. Anybody sittin’ here alone, a woman, especial, would likely think a lot of curious thoughts. They’d seem real. I reckon it was your ankle, that kept you from walkin’.”
“It hurts terribly,” she whispered, and she felt of it, looking at him plaintively. “It is so swollen I can’t get my boot off. And the leather seems like an iron band around it.” She looked pleadingly at him. “Won’t you please take it off?”
His embarrassment was genuine and deep.
“Why, I reckon I can, ma’am,” he told her. “But I ain’t never had a heap of experience—” His pause was eloquent, and he finished lamely“with boots—boots, that is, that was on swelled ankles.”
“Is it necessary to have experience?” she returned impatiently.
“Why, I reckon not, ma’am.” He knelt beside her and grasped the boot, giving it a gentle tug. She cried out with pain and he dropped the boot and made a grimace of sympathy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, ma’am.”
“I know you didn’t”—peevishly. “Oh,” she added as he took the boot in hand again, this time giving it a slight twist; “men aresuchawkward creatures!”
“Why, I reckon they are, ma’am. That is, one, in particular. There’s times when I can’t get my own boots on.” He grinned, and she looked icily at him.
“Get hold of it just above the ankle, please,” she instructed evenly and drew the hem of her skirt tightly. “There!” she added as he seized the limb gingerly, “now pull!”
He did as he had been bidden. She shrieked in agony and jerked the foot away, and he stood up, his face reflecting some of the pain and misery that shone in hers.
“It’s awful, ma’am,” he sympathized. “Overat the Diamond H, one of the boys got his leg broke, last year, ridin’ an outlaw, or tryin’ to ride him, which ain’t quite the same thing—an’ we had to get his boot off before we could set the break. Why, ma’am; we had to set on his head to keep him from scarin’ all the cattle off the range, with his screechin’.”
She looked at him with eyes that told him plainly that no one was going to sit onherhead—and that she would “screech” if she chose. And then she spoke to him with bitter sarcasm:
“Perhaps if youtriedto do something, instead of standing there, telling me something that happenedagesago, I wouldn’t have to sit here and endure this awful m-m-misery!”
The break in her voice brought him on his knees at her side. “Why, I reckon itmusthurt like the devil, ma’am.” He looked around helplessly.
“Haven’t you got something that you might take it off with?” she demanded tearfully. “Haven’t you got a knife?”
He reddened guiltily. “I clean forgot it ma’am.” He laughed with embarrassment. “I expect I’d never do for a doctor, ma’am; I’m so excited an’ forgetful. An’ I recollect, now thatyou mention it, that we had to cut Hiller’s boot off. That was the man I was tellin’ you about. He—”
“Oh, dear,” she said with heavy resignation, “I suppose you simplymusttalk! Do youliketo see me suffer?”
“Why, shucks, I feel awful sorry for you, ma’am. I’ll sure hurry.”
While he had been speaking he had drawn out his knife, and with as much delicacy as the circumstances would permit, he accomplished the destruction of the boot. Then, after many admonitions for him to be careful, and numerous sharp intakings of her breath, the boot was withdrawn, showing her stockinged foot, puffed to abnormal proportions. She looked at it askance.
“Do you think it is b-broken?” she asked him, dreading.
He grasped it tenderly, discovered that the ankle moved freely, and after pressing it in several places, looked up at her.
“I don’t think it’s broke, ma’am. It’s a bad sprain though, I reckon. I reckon it ought to be rubbed—so’s to bring back the blood that couldn’t get in while the boot was on.”
The foot was rubbed, he having drawn off the stocking with as much delicacy as he had exhibited in taking off the boot. And then while Randerson considerately withdrew under pretense of looking at Patches, the stocking was put on again. When he came back it was to be met with a request:
“Won’t you please find my pony and bring him back?”
“Why, sure, ma’am.” He started again for Patches, but halted and looked back at her. “You won’t be scared again?”
“No,” she said. And then: “But you’ll hurry, won’t you?”
“I reckon.” He was in the saddle quickly, loping Patches to the crest of a hill near by in hopes of getting a view of the recreant pony. He got a glimpse of it, far back on the plains near some timber, and he was about to shout the news to Ruth, who was watching him intently, when he thought better of the notion and shut his lips.
Urging Patches forward, he rode toward Ruth’s pony at a moderate pace. Three times during the ride he looked back. Twice he was able to see Ruth, but the third time he had swerved so that some bushes concealed him fromher. He was forced to swerve still further to come up with the pony, and he noted that Ruth would never have been able to see her pony from her position.
It was more than a mile to where the animal stood, and curiously, as though to make amends for his previous bad behavior to Ruth, he came trotting forward to Randerson, whinnying gently.
Randerson seized the bridle, and grinned at the animal.
“I reckon I ought to lam you a-plenty, you miserable deserter,” he said severely, “runnin’ away from your mistress that-a-way. Is that the way for a respectable horse to do? You’ve got her all nervous an’ upset—an’ she sure roasted me. Do you reckon there’s any punishment that’d fit what you done? Well, I reckon! You come along with me!”
Leading the animal, he rode Patches to the edge of the timber. There, unbuckling one end of the reins from the bit ring, he doubled them, passed them through a gnarled root, made a firm knot and left the pony tied securely. Then he rode off and looked back, grinning.
“You’re lost, you sufferin’ runaway. Only you don’t know it.”
He loped Patches away and made a wide detour of the mesa, making sure that he appeared often on the sky line, so that he would be seen by Ruth. At the end of half an hour he rode back to where the girl was standing, watching him. He dismounted and approached her, standing before her, his expression one of grave worry.
“That outlaw of yours ain’t anywhere in sight, ma’am,” he said. “I reckon he’s stampeded back to the ranchhouse. You sure you ain’t seen him go past here?”
“No,” she said, “unless he went way around, just after it got dark.”
“I reckon that’s what he must have done. Some horses is plumb mean. But you can’t walk, you know,” he added after a silence; “I reckon you’ll have to ride Patches.”
“You would have to walk, then,” she objected. “And that wouldn’t be fair!”
“Walkin’ wouldn’t bother me, ma’am.” He got Patches and led him closer. She looked at the animal, speculatively.
“Don’t you think he could carry both of us?” she asked.
He scrutinized Patches judicially. A light, which she did not see, leaped into his eyes.
“Why, I didn’t think of that. I reckon he could, ma’am. Anyway, we can try it, if you want to.”
He led Patches still closer. Then, with much care, he lifted Ruth and placed her in the saddle, mounting behind her. Patches moved off.
After a silence which might have lasted while they rode a mile, Ruth spoke.
“My ankle feels very much easier.”
“I’m glad of that, ma’am.”
“Randerson,” she said, after they had gone on a little ways further; “I beg your pardon for speaking to you the way I did, back there. But my footdidhurt terribly.”
“Why, sure. I expect I deserved to get roasted.”
Again there was a silence. Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill with the instinct of protection. So strong was this feeling that when he thought of her pony, back at the timber, guilt ceased to bother him.
Ruth related to him the conversation she hadoverheard between Chavis and Kester, and he smiled understandingly at her.
“Do you reckon you feel as tender toward them now as you did before you found that out?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It made me angry to hear them talk like that. But as for hanging them—” She shivered. “There were times, tonight, though, when I thought hanging would be too good for them,” she confessed.
“You’ll shape up real western—give you time,” he assured. “You’ll be ready to take your own part, without dependin’ on laws to do it for you—laws that don’t reach far enough.”
“I don’t think I shall ever get your viewpoint,” she declared.
“Well,” he said, “Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I’d gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an’ told him about Pickett, he’d have done anything but poke fun at me? An’ that word would have gone all over the country—that I was scared of Pickett—an’ I’d have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma’am. Mebbe I’d have been a hero if I’d have let him shoot me, but I wouldn’t have been here any more to know about it. An’ I’m plumb satisfied to be here, ma’am.”
“How did you come to hear about me not getting home?” she asked.
“I’d rode in to see Catherson. I couldn’t see him—because he wasn’t there. Then I come on over to the ranchhouse, an’ Uncle Jepson told me about you not comin’ in.”
“Was Mr. Masten at the ranchhouse?”
He hesitated. Then he spoke slowly. “I didn’t see him there, ma’am.”
She evidently wondered why it had not been Masten that had come for her.
They were near the house when she spoke again:
“Did you have an accident today, Randerson?”
“Why, ma’am?” he asked to gain time, for he knew that the moonlight had been strong enough, and that he had been close enough to her, to permit her to see.
“Your face has big, ugly, red marks on it, and the skin on your knuckles is all torn,” she said.
“Patches throwed me twice, comin’ after you, ma’am,” he lied. “I plowed up the ground considerable. I’ve never knowed Patches to be so unreliable.”
She turned in the saddle and looked full at him.“That is strange,” she said, looking ahead again. “The men have told me that you are a wonderful horseman.”
“The men was stretchin’ the truth, I reckon,” he said lightly.
“Anyway,” she returned earnestly; “I thank you very much for coming for me.”
She said nothing more to him until he helped her down at the edge of the porch at the ranchhouse. And then, while Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha were talking and laughing with pleasure at her return, she found time to say, softly to him:
“I really don’t blame you so much—about Pickett. I suppose it was necessary.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said gratefully.
He helped her inside, where the glare of the kerosene lamps fell upon him. He saw Uncle Jepson looking at him searchingly; and he caught Ruth’s quick, low question to Aunt Martha, as he was letting her gently down in a chair:
“Where is Willard?”
“He came in shortly after dark,” Aunt Martha told her. “Jep was talking to him, outside. He left a note for you. He told Jep that he was going over to Lazette for a couple of weeks, my dear.”
Randerson saw Ruth’s frown. He also saw Aunt Martha looking intently through her glasses at the bruises on his face.
“Why, boy,” she exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
Randerson reddened. It was going to be harder for him to lie to Aunt Martha than to Ruth. But Ruth saved him the trouble.
“Randerson was thrown twice, riding out to get me,” she explained.
“Throwed twice, eh?” said Uncle Jepson to Randerson, when a few minutes later he followed the range boss out on the porch. He grinned at Randerson suspiciously. “Throwed twice, eh?” he repeated. “Masten’s face looks like some one had danced a jig on it. Huh! I cal’late that if you was throwed twice, Masten’s horse must havedrughim!”
“You ain’t tellin’her!” suggested Randerson.
“You tell her anythingyouwant to tell her, my boy,” whispered Uncle Jepson. “An’ if I don’t miss my reckonin’, she’lllistento you, some day.”