A young chap from the East who was in Clear River County because of his lungs named her Delilah when she was only a little girl—Delilah Gomez. She cooked now for the Double Six Ranch, the buildings of which clustered within a stone's throw of the Ranger post office. And that night as she sat looking from her window she thought, as she did much of the time, about the smiling Julio with his guitar—the handsome fellow who lived with Señor Rhues and did no work, but wore such fine chaps and kerchiefs!
She sighed, then started to her feet as she saw him come through the gate and up the path, and hastened to open the door for him.
Julio took off his hat.
"It is late," he said, flashing his teeth. "I come to ask you to do something for me, Delilah."
"What is it—now—so late?" she asked breathlessly.
"In the old house across the road"—he pointed—"is a horse. It is the horse of a friend. A friend, also, of Señor Rhues. He is now in the saloon. He is drunk. Will you take the horse away? To the place of Señor Rhues? And put him in the barn? And be sure to fasten the door so he will not get out?"
Delilah was puzzled a moment.
"But why," she asked, "why so late?"
Julio bowed profoundly again.
"We go—Señor Rhues, Señor Matson, and I, Julio, to take our friend away from the saloon. We are busy. Senor Rhues offers this."
He pressed a dollar into her palm. And for the dollar and a flash of Julio's teeth, Delilah went forth upon her commission.
The three men watched her go.
"That devil'd tear a man to pieces," Rhues muttered. "Any woman can handle him, though. Git him locked up, an' th' —— tenderfoot can't make it away! He'll have to stay an' take what's comin'!"
The girl led the Captain down the road, past the Double Six Ranch, on to the cramped little barn behind the cabin where lived Rhues and his two companions.
It was not an easy task. The Captain did not want to go. He kept stopping and looking back. But the girl talked to him kindly and stroked his nose and—VB himself had taught him to respect women. This woman talked softly and petted him much, for she remembered the great horse she had seen ridden by the tall young fellow. Besides, the dollar was still in her hand. She led him into the cramped little barn, left him standing and came out, closing the doors behind her. Then she set out for home, clasping the dollar and thinking of Julio's smile.
The first shot attracted her. The second alarmed, and those that followed terrified the girl. She ran from the road and hovered in the shadow of a huge bowlder, watching fearfully, uttering little moans of fright.
She heard everything. Some men ran past her in the direction of Rhues's cabin, and she thought one of them must be Julio. But she was too frightened to stir, to try to determine; too frightened to do anything but make for her own home.
The girl moved stealthily through the night, facing the moon that swung low, unclouded again, making all radiant. She wanted to run for home, where she could hide under blankets, but caution and fear held her to a walk. She did not cry out when she stumbled over the body; merely cowered, holding both hands over her lips.
For a long time she stood by it, looking down, not daring to stoop, not daring to go away. Then the hand that sprawled on the dirt raised itself fell back; the lips parted, a moan escaped, and the head rolled from one side to the other.
The fear of dead things that had been on her passed. She saw only a human being who was hurt. She dropped to her knees and took the head in her lap.
"Oh,por Dios! It is theseñorwho rode the horse!" she muttered, and looked quickly over her shoulder at the Rhues cabin.
"They left him; they thought he was dead," she went on aloud. "They should know; he should be with them. They were going for him when the shooting began!"
She looked closer into VB's face and he moaned again. His eyes opened. The girl asked a sharp question in Spanish.
"Is theseñormuch hurt?" she repeated in the language he understood.
"Oh, Captain!" he moaned. "Why? Why did you—quit?"
She lifted him up then and he struggled sluggishly to help himself.
Once he muttered: "Oh, Gail! It hurts so!"
She strained to the limits of her lithe strength until she had him on his feet. Then she drew one of his arms about her neck, bracing herself to support his lagging weight.
"Come," she said comfortingly. "We will go—to them."
No light showed from the Rhues cabin, but the girl was sure the men were there, or would come soon. Loyal to Julio for the dollar and the memory of his graciousness, she worked with the heart of a good Samaritan, guiding the unconscious steps of the muttering man toward the little dark blot of houses.
It was a floundering progress. Twice in the first few rods the man went down and she was sorely put to get him on his feet again. But the moving about seemed to bring back his strength, and gradually he became better able to help himself.
They crossed the road and passed through the gap in the fence by the cabin. VB kept muttering wildly, calling the girl Gail, calling for the Captain in a plaintive voice.
"There they are now! See the light?" she whispered. "It is not much. They have covered the window. Yes."
"What?" VB asked, drawing a hand across his eyes.
She repeated her assertion that the men were in the cabin and he halted, refusing drunkenly to go on.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm unarmed—they—"
But she tugged at him and forced him to go beside her. They progressed slowly, painfully, quietly. There was no sound, except VB's hard breathing, for they trod in dust. They approached the house and the girl put out a hand to help her along with the burden.
A thin streak of light came from a window. It seemed to slash deeply into the staggering man, bringing him back to himself. Then a sound, the low, worried nickering of a horse! The Mexican girl felt the arm about her neck tighten and tremble.
"The Captain!" VB muttered, looking about wildly.
He opened his lips to cry out to the horse as the events of the night poured back into his consciousness, to cry his questioning and his sorrow, to put into words the mourning for a faith, but that cry never came from his throat.
The nickering of the stallion and the flood of memory had brought him to a clear understanding of the situation; a sudden glare of light from the abruptly uncovered window before which he and the girl stood provoked an alertness which was abnormally keen, that played with the subjective rather than the more cumbersome objective. He stooped with the quickness of a drop and scuttled into the shadows, cautious, the first law of man athrob.
The man who had brushed away the blanket that had screened the window burst into irritated talk. VB recognized him as Matson. Back in the shadows of the room he saw the Mexican standing.
A table was close to the window, so close that in crowding behind it Matson had torn down the blanket that had done service as a curtain. A lamp burned on the table, its wick so high that smoke streamed upward through the cracked chimney. And close beside the lamp, eyes glittering, cruel cunning in every line, the flush of anger smearing it, was the face of Rhues!
VB, crouching there, saw then that Matson's finger was leveled at Rhues.
"It ain't good money!"
That was the declaration Matson had made as the blanket slipped down and disclosed the scene. He repeated it, and his voice rose to a snarl.
Delilah started to rise but VB jerked her back with a vehemence that shot a new fear through the girl, that made her breathe quickly and loudly. For the first time he turned and looked at the girl, not to discover who this might be that had brought him to the nest of those who sought his life, but to threaten.
"You stay here," he whispered sharply. "If you make a sound, I'll—you'll never forget it!"
His face was close to hers and he wagged his head to emphasize the warning.
Where she had expected to find a friend the Mexican girl realized that she had encountered a foe. Where she had, from the fullness of her heart and for a dollar and the admiration of Julio, sought to help, she knew now that she had wronged. His intensity filled her with this knowledge and sent her shrinking against the wall of the cabin, a hand half raised to her cheek, trembling, wanting to whimper for mercy.
"Keep still!" he warned again, and, stretching one hand toward her as though to do sentry duty, ready to throttle any sound, to stay any flight, to bolster his commands, he crept closer to the window.
"Why ain't it good?" Rhues was asking in a voice that carried no great conviction, as though he merely stalled for time.
VB saw him stretch a bill close to the lamp and Matson lean low beside him. The light fell on the piece of currency, not six feet from VB's fever-bright eyes. He saw that they were inspecting a fifty-dollar bill issued by the Confederate States of America! And Rhues said grudgingly: "Well, if that ain't good, they's only six hunderd 'n all!"
Up came the buried memories, struggling through all the welded events in the furnace consciousness of the man who pressed his face so close to the window's crinkly glass. His eyes sought aimlessly for some object that might suggest a solution for the slipping thought he tried to grasp. They found it—found it in a rumpled, coiled contrivance of leather that lay beside the lamp. It was a money belt. The money belt that Kelly, the horse buyer, had worn!
Six hundred dollars! And a Confederate States fifty-dollar bill! They were quarreling over the spoils of that chill murder!
VB swayed unsteadily as he felt a rage swell in him, a rage that nullified caution. He turned his eyes back to the Mexican girl cringing just out of his reach and moved the extended hand up and down slowly to keep his warning fresh upon her. He wanted time to think, just a moment to determine what action would be most advisable. His heart raced unevenly and he thought the hot edges of his wound were blistering.
"That's two hundred apiece, then," Rhues said, and straightened.
VB saw that the hand which had dropped the worthless piece of paper held a roll of yellow-backed bills.
"Two hundred we all git," he growled. "You git it, Julio gits it, I git it—an' I'm th' party what done th' work!"
VB stooped and grasped Delilah roughly by the arm. He held a finger to his lips as he dragged the shaking girl out to where she could see.
"Watch!" he commanded, close in her ear. "Watch Rhues—and the others!"
Rhues counted slowly, wetting his thumb with hasty movements and dropping bills from the roll to the table top.
"Both you"—he looked up to indicate Matson and Julio—"gits 's much 's me, an' I done th' work!"
"An' if we're snagged, we stand as good a chanct o' gettin' away as you," Matson remarked, and laughed shortly.
Rhues looked up again and narrowed the red lids over his eyes.
"You said it!" he snarled. "That's why it's good to keep yer mouths shut! That's why you got to dig out—with me.
"If I'm snagged—remember, they's plenty o' stories I could tell about you two—an' I will, too, if I'm snagged 'cause o' you!"
He worked his shoulders in awkward gesture.
"An' that's why we want our share," Matson growled back. "An' want it quick! We watched th' road; you done th' killin'. We thought it was jus' to settle things with that ——, but it wasn't. It was profitable."
He ended with another short laugh.
"Well, I said I'd git him, didn't I? An' I did, didn't I? An' if th' first time went wrong it was—profitable, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but queek, queeker!" the Mexican broke in. "They might come—now!"
"Well, quit snivelin'!" snapped Rhues. "It didn't go as we planned. I had to shoot 'fore I wanted to. But I got him, didn't I?"
Julio reached for the pile of bills Rhues shoved toward him; Matson took his; Rhues pocketed the rest. And outside, VB relaxed his hold on the girl's wrist, raising both hands upward and out, fingers stiff and claw-like.
Kelly, good-natured, careless, likable, trusting Kelly, had gone out to pay toll to this man's viciousness; had gone because he, VB, would not submit to Rhues's bullying! And now they laughed, and called it a profitable mistake!
All his civilized, law-abiding nature rose in its might. All that spirit which demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, which makes for statutes and courts and the driving of nations into fixed paths, lifted VB above any caution that the circumstances could have engendered. His whole nature cried out for the justice he had been trained to respect; his single remaining impulse was to make this man Rhues suffer for the act of which there was such ample evidence.
He struggled to find a way toward retribution, for in a moment it might be too late. He had no thought beyond the instant, no idea but to possess himself of something more, to make the case stronger for society. He had seen, he had heard, he had the girl beside him, but he wanted more evidence.
Matson moved away from the window and as he did so the sash sagged inward. It was a hinged casing!
His hands numb from excitement, VB forced his arms against it, shoving stoutly. The force of his effort precipitated his head and shoulders into the room! He had a flash of the three men as they whirled and poised, with oaths, but his mind did not linger on them. His fingers clutched the money belt, drew it to him, and as Rhues dropped a hand to his hip VB staggered backward out of the window, stuffing the money belt inside his shirt, in against the hot wound, and stared about him.
For an instant, silence, as Rhues stood, gun drawn, shoulders forward, gazing at the empty window. Then upon them came a shrill, quavering, anxious cry—the call of the Captain.
To VB, at the sound of the stallion's neighing, came the realization of his position—weaponless in the midst of men who, now of all times, would shoot to kill! His righteous abhorrence of the murder Rhues had done and in which the others had been conspirators did not lessen. He did not falter in his determination for vengeance; but his thirst for it did not detract one whit from his realization of the situation's difficulties.
Seconds were precious. Just a lone instant he poised, looking quickly about, and to his ears came again the cry of the horse, plaintive, worried, appealing.
"Captain!" he cried, and started to run. "Captain! You didn't fail! Theybroughtyou!"
His voice lifted to a shout as he rounded the corner of the house, and the Captain answered.
With the horse located, VB stumbled across the short intervening space, one hand to his breast doing the double duty of attempting to still the searing of that wound and hold fast to the money belt. He flung himself at the door of the low little stable, jerked the fastening apart, and, backing in, saw men run from the house, heard them curse sharply, and saw them turn and look, each with his shooting hand raised.
VB drew the door shut after him, trembling, thinking swiftly. The Captain nosed him and nickered relief, stepping about in his agitation as though he knew the desperate nature of the corner into which they had been driven.
"We've got to get out, boy," VB cried, running his numb hands over the animal's face in caress. "We're up against it, but there's a way out!"
It was good to be back. It was good to feel that thick, firm neck again, to have the warm breath of the vital beast on his cheek, to sense his dominating presence—for it did dominate, even in that strained circumstance, and in the stress VB found half hysterical joy and voiced it:
"You didn't quit, Captain!" he cried as he felt the cinch hastily. "You didn't quit. They—that woman! She brought you here!"
He flung his arms about the stallion's head in a quick, nervous embrace at the cost of a mighty cutting pain across his chest.
Then the cautious voice of Rhues, outside and close up to the door, talking lowly and swiftly:
"Julio, saddle th' buckskin! Quick! I'll hold him here till we're ready! Then I'll shoot th' —— down in his tracks! We got to ride, anyhow—nothin' 'll make no difference now!"
Raising his voice, Rhues taunted:
"Pray, you ——! Yer goin' to cash!"
VB pressed his face to a crack and saw Rhues in the moonlight, close up to the door. He also saw another man, Julio, leading a horse from the corral on the run. Two other animals, saddled, stood near.
He was cornered, helpless, in their hands—hard hands, that knew no mercy. But he did not give up. His mind worked nimbly, skipping from possibility to possibility, looking, searching for a way out.
He reeled to the black horse and felt the animal's breath against the back of his neck.
"We're up against it, boy," he whispered.
And the voice of Rhues again: "They'll find him to-morrow—with th' belt!"
He broke off suddenly, as though the words had set in his mind a new idea.
VB did not hear; would not have heeded had his senses registered the words, because an odd apathy had come over him, dulling the pain of his wound, deadening the realization of his danger. He sighed deeply and shook himself and tried to rally, but though a part of him insisted that he gather his faculties and force them to alertness, another tired, lethargic self overbore the warning. Half consciously he pulled the stirrup toward him, put up his foot with an unreal effort, and laboriously drew himself to the saddle. There, he leaned forward on his arms, which were crossed on the Captain's neck, oblivious to all that transpired.
But the great stallion was not insensible to the situation. He could not know the danger, but he did know that he had been led into a strange place, shut there and left virtually a prisoner; that his master had burst in upon him atremble with communicable excitement; that strange voices were raised close to him; that men had been running to and fro; that the sounds of struggling horses were coming from out there; that some man was standing on the other side of the door, closer than most men had ever stood to him. He breathed loudly; then stilled that breath to listen, his head moving with frequent, short jerks as he saw objects move past the cracks in the building. He switched his tail about his hindquarters sharply, and backed a step.
Another voice called softly to Rhues, and Rhues answered:
"Dah! When I rolled him over his holster flopped out of his shirt, empty. He dropped it in th' s'loon. If he'd had a gun he'd done fer us 'n there, wouldn't he?"
Then his voice was raised in a sharp command: "Help him, Julio! Hang on to his ear an' he'll stand.Pronto!"
Sounds of men grunting, of a horse striving to break from them; a sharp cry. These things—and emanating from a scene taking place outside the Captain's sight! He half wheeled and scrubbed the back wall of the stable with his hip, blowing loudly in fright. He stamped a forefoot impatiently; followed that by a brisk, nervous pawing. He tossed his head and chewed his bit briskly; then shook his head and blew loudly again. He shied violently as a man ran past the door, wheeled, crashed into the wall again and, crouching, quivered violently.
VB moaned with pain. When the horse under him had shied the boy had pushed himself erect in the saddle and the effort tore at the wound in his chest. The pain roused him, and as the Captain again wheeled, frantic to find a way out of this pen, VB's heels clapped inward to retain his seat, the spurs drove home, and with a whimper the horse reared to his hind legs, lunged forward, and the front hoofs, shooting out, crashed squarely against the closed door!
Under the force of the blow the door swept outward, screaming on its rusty hinges. A third of the way open it struck resistance, quivered, seemed to hesitate, then continued on its arc.
A surprised, muffled shout, the sound of a body striking ground, a shot, its stream of fire spitting toward the night sky. Then the vicious smiting of hoofs as the Captain, bearing his witless rider, swung in a short circle and made for the river.
Rhues, caught and knocked flat by the bursting open of the door, was perhaps a half-dozen seconds in getting to his feet. He came up shooting, a stream of leaden missiles shrieking aimlessly off into space. Julio and Matson, busy with the refractory buckskin, heard the crash and creak of the swinging door, heard the shout, heard the shot; they turned to see the black stallion sweep from the little building and swirl past them, ears back, teeth gleaming, and bearing to the north.
Still clinging to the buckskin's head, the Mexican drew his gun; Matson, utterly bewildered, fearful of impending consequences, gave the cinch a final tug, but before Julio could fire the water of the river was thrown in radiant spray as the Captain floundered into midstream with VB low on his neck.
Then Rhues was on them, putting into choking words the vileness of his heart. He did not explain beyond:
"Th' —— horse! Th' door got me!"
He seized the cheek strap of the buckskin's bridle and swung up, while the others watched the horse running out into the moonlit river. The pony reared and pivoted on his hind legs.
"Git on yer hosses!" Rhues screeched, yanking at the bit. "He can't git away, with his hoss run down once to-night! An' if we let him—we swing!"
Goaded by that terror they obeyed, hanging spurs in their horses' flanks before they found stirrups, and the trio whirled down to the water.
"He's goin' home!" Rhues cried above the splashing. "That's our way out; we'll git him as we go 'long! We'll ride him down; he ain't got a gun! An' they'll find him out yonder with th' money belt on him! We—" He broke short with a laugh. "We could claim th' reward! Two fifty, dead 'r alive!"
Matson snarled something. Then, as their horses struggled up the far bank of the stream, completed it:
"—— with th' reward! What we want's a get-away!"
"We're on our way now," growled Rhues, and lashed his pony viciously with the ends of his bridle reins.
Knee to knee they raced, the ponies stretching their heads far out in efforts to cover that light ribbon of road which clove the cloudlike sage brush and ate up the distance between their position and that scudding blur ahead. Each had his gun drawn and held high in the right hand ready for use; each, with eyes only for that before them, with minds only for speed—and quick speculation on what might happen should they fail.
The creak of leather, the sharp batter of hoofs, the rattle of pebbles as they were thrown out against the rocks, the excited breathing of horses: A race, with human life the trophy!
And VB, looking back, saw. With set teeth he leaned still lower over the Captain's neck in spite of the raging the posture set up in his torn breast. No will of his had directed the stallion in that flight northward. His unexpected dash through the barn door, the quick recognition of the point they had scored, the sharp pang which came when VB realized the fact that the horse's, break for home had cut him off from help that might have remained in Ranger, left the wounded man in a swirl of confused impressions.
Behind all the jumble was the big urge to reach that place which had been the only true haven of his experience. He felt a glimmer of solace when he sensed that he was going home which quite neutralized the terror that the glance at those oncoming riders provoked. The comfort inculcated by the idea grew into clear thinking; from there on into the status of an obsession. He was going home! He was on the way, with that mighty beast under him! He raised more of his weight to the stirrups and laid a reassuring hand on the snapping shoulder of his horse.
And on his trail rode the merciless three, their eyes following the bending course of the road, hat-brims now blown back against the crowns, now down over their eyes in the rush through the night. Rhues rode a quarter of a length ahead of the others, and his automatic was raised higher than were their gun-hands. Now and then one of the trio spoke sharply to his horse and grunted as he raked with a spur, but for the greater part of the time they did not lift their voices above the thunder of the race. They knew what must happen; they held their own, and waited!
"Go, boy, go!" whispered VB. "We'll run their legs off; they'll never get in range!"
The Captain held an attentive ear backward a moment, then shot it forward, watching the road, holding his rolling, space-eating stride. VB turned his head and again looked back. They were still there! No nearer—but he had not shaken them off. Two, perhaps three, miles had been covered and they hung by him, just within sight, just beyond that point where they might fire with an even chance of certainty. He pressed his arm against his burning breast, crowding the treasured money belt tighter against the wound. Somehow, it seemed to dull the torment, and for minutes he held the pressure constant, still lifted to supreme heights of endeavor and ability to withstand suffering by the rage that had welled up from his depths as he stood back in the shadow of the cabin and had the suspicion of how and why Kelly had met death become certainty.
Another mile, and he turned to look back again. They still hung there, making a blur in the moonlight, fanciful, half floating, but he knew they were real, knew that they hammered their way through the night with lust for his life!
"Captain!" he cried, apprehension rising. "Go it, boy; go it!"
He pressed a spur lightly against his side and felt the great beast quiver between strides. The pace quickened a trifle, but VB saw that the ears were no longer held steadily to the fore, that the head ducked with each leap forward as he had never seen it duck before. And as the thought with its killing remorse thundered into his intelligence, VB sat erect in the saddle with a gasp and a movement which staggered the running animal that bore him.
The Captain's strength had been drained! For twenty strides VB sat there, inert, a dead weight, while grief came into his throat, into his vision, deadening his mind. In all that melodrama which began when he stared through the saloon door and saw Rhues standing in the moonlight, gun ready, the reason for his presence in Ranger, the history of the earlier night, had been obliterated for the time being. Now, as he felt the beast under him labor, heard his heavy breathing, saw the froth on his lips, it all came back to Young VB.
"Oh, Captain!" he wailed, leaning forward again, eyes burning, throat choking.
And for a long time he rode as though unable to do else but hold his position over the fork of the saddle.
He was stunned, beaten down by poignant remorse. The Captain had made the long ride from Jed's to Ranger at a killing pace. VB remembered acutely now that the stallion had staggered as he emerged from Clear River and came into view of the saloon lights. And he had been there how long? An hour of poker, perhaps; an hour more at the outside. Two hours for the horse to regain the strength that had been taken from him in that cruel ride—a ride taken to satisfy the viciousness which made VB a man uncertain of himself!
The Captain had been wasted! He had gone, as had VB's heart and mind, to be a sacrifice for hideous gods! In an hour of weakness he had been offered, had been given gladly, and without thought of his value! For had not VB gloried in that ride to Ranger? Had it not been the end of all things for him? An end for which he was thankful? Had it not been all conscious, witting, planned? It had—and it had not been worth the candle!
The boy moaned aloud and wound his fingers in the flapping mane.
"Captain!" he cried. "It was all wrong—all false! I threw you away an hour ago, and now—you'relifeto me! Oh, boy, will you forgive? Can you?"
No fear of death tapped the wells of his grief. There was only sorrow for his wasting of that great animal, that splendid spirit, that clean strength!
After a moment he sobbed: "You can't do anything else but go on, boy! You're that sort! You'll go, then I'll go; anyhow, it will be together!"
And the great beast, blowing froth from his lips, struggled on, while from behind came the sounds of other running horses—perhaps a trifle nearer.
The road writhed on through the sage brush sixteen miles from Ranger before it branched. Then to the right ran the S Bar S route, while straight on it headed into Jed's ranch, and the left-hand course, shooting away from the others behind a long, rocky point, followed Sand Creek up to the cluster of buildings which marked the domicile of Dick Worth.
It was more than halfway. The Captain, now trotting heavily, now breaking once more into a floundering gallop, passed the first fork, that leading toward Worth's. With a gulp of relief VB saw that the moon hung low in the west—so low that the road home would be in the shadow of the point, which seemed to come down purposely to split the highway. He might then find refuge in darkness somewhere. He must have refuge!
At the tenth mile he had suspected, now he knew, that it would be impossible to stand off his pursuers clear to the ranch, and there were no habitations between him and Jed's.
"They haven't gained on you, boy!" he cried as he made out the distinct outlines of the point. "They're right where they were at the start! No other horse in the world could have done it; not even you should be asked to do it—but—but—"
He choked back the sob that fought to come. He knew he must concentrate his last energy, now. If he came through there would be time to think of his crime against the Captain! But now— Futures depend on lives. His life dangled in the balance, and he wanted it, as men can want life only when they feel it slipping.
Back there three men raked the streaming sides of their ponies with vicious spurs.
"He can't make it!" Rhues swore. "Th' black's quittin' now! If he gits away, what chance we got? We got to git him! It'll give us th' last chance!"
"We're killin' our horses," growled Matson.
And Julio, a length behind, flogged his pinto mercilessly.
No craving for VB's life prompted Rhues now. He must go on for the sake of his own safety. He and those other two had all to gain and nothing to lose. If they could drop the man ahead it would be possible to skirt the ranches, catch fresh horses, and make on toward Wyoming. But let VB gain shelter with Jed or any one else, and a posse would be on their trail before they could be beyond reach.
No, there could be no turning back! They had made their bet; now they must back it with the whole stack. And before them—that blot in the moonlight—a wounded, suffering man cried aloud to the horse that moved so heavily under him.
"Make it to the point, Captain!" he begged. "Just there! It'll be dark! Only a little faster, boy!"
The stallion grunted under the stress of his effort, moving for the moment with less uncertainty, with a jot more speed.
They crawled up to the point and followed the bend of the road as it led into the dimness of the gulch. Across the way, far to the right, moonlight fell on the cliffs, but where the road hung close to the rise at the left all was in shadow.
To VB, entering the murk was like plunging from the heat of glaring day to the cool of a forest.
The men behind him would be forced to come twice as close before they could make firing effective. Then, when he reached the ranch—
He threw out an arm in a gesture of utter hopelessness. Reach the ranch? He laughed aloud, mocking his own guilelessness. He had come only a little more than half the distance now, and Captain could scarcely be held at a trot. Three miles, possibly five, he might last, and then his rider would have to face his pursuers with empty hands.
His was the very epitome of despair. A weaker man would have quit then, would have let the stallion flounder to his finish, would have waited submissively for Rhues to come and shoot him down. But VB possessed the strength of his desperation.
Rhues might get him now, as he had tried to get him twice before, but he would get him by fighting. Not wholly for himself did the boy think, but for the likable, friendly Kelly, who had died there in his blankets without warning. If he could rid men of the menace which Rhues represented he would have done service, and the life of those last months had implanted within him the will to be of use—though, a few hours back, he might have thought it all a delusion.
So VB was alert with the acute alertness of mind which is given to humans when forced to fight to preserve life—when everything, the buried subconscious impulses, the forgotten, tucked-away memories, are in the fore, crying to help. Abandoning hope of reaching Jed's, he turned all his physical force, even, into the mental effort to seek a way out; fought his way to clarified thought, fought his way into logic. He could not go on much longer; there was no such thing as turning back, for he could hear them, nearer now! He could hear the click of pebbles as his pursuers' horses sent them scattering, and a pebble click will not travel far. Ahead—weakening muscles; behind—guns ready; to the right—moonlight; to the left—
The bridle rein drew across the Captain's lathered neck. The big beast swung to the left, out of the road, crashed through the brush, and lunged against the rise of rocks.
The horse seemed to sense the fact that this was the one remaining chance, the last possibility left in their bag of tricks. He picked his way up among the ragged bowlders and spiked brush with a quickness of movement that told of the breaking through into those reservoirs of strength which are held in man and beast until a last hope is found.
VB went suddenly faint. The loss of blood, the pain, the stress of nervous thought, the knowing that his full hand was on the table, caused him to reel dizzily in the saddle. He made no pretense of guiding the Captain. He merely sagged forward and felt the horse lunge and plunge and climb with him, heard the rasping breath that seemed to come from a torn throat.
Below and behind, the trailers swept from moonlight into shadow, horses wallowing as though that hard road were in deep mud, so great was the race that the stallion, spent though he might be, had given them. Rhues was ahead, revolver held higher than before, Matson's pony at his flank and Julio a dozen lengths behind. Bridle reins, knotted, hung loosely on their horses' necks; the three left hands rose and fell and quirts swished viciously through the night air.
"We got to close in!" Rhues cried. "We'll have him 'n a mile!"
And he called down on the heads of the horses awful imprecations for their weakness.
On into the darkness they stormed, Julio trailing. And when Rhues had passed by fifty yards the point where the Captain had turned to take the steep climb the Mexican opened his throat in a cry, half of fright, half of exultation.
The Captain, almost at the end of his climb, leaping from rise to rise, had missed his footing. The soft earth slid as he jumped for a ledge of rock, and the front feet, coming down on the smooth surface in frantic clawing to prevent a fall, sent fire streaming from their shoes. In the darkness Julio had seen the orange sparks. At his cry the others set their ponies back on haunches and, following the Mexican, who now led, cursing VB and their weakening mounts, they commenced the climb. VB knew. The flash from the stallion's feet had roused him; he heard the shout; he knew what must follow. He gave no heed to the bullet which bored the air above him as he was silhouetted for the instant against moonlit space before he commenced the drop to the road leading up Sand Creek.
Where now? With a sigh which ended in a quick choking, as though he were through, ready to give up this ghost of a chance, ready to quit struggling on, the Captain dropped from the last little rim and turned into the road. Not on ahead—into that void where they could ride him down. Not back toward Ranger, for it was impossibly far. Where then? What was there? Sand Creek! And up Sand Creek was Dick Worth's!
VB caught his breath in a sob. It was the one goal open to him, though the odds were crushing. He pressed the money belt tightly. Dick Worth was the man who should have that—Dick Worth, deputy sheriff! He lifted his voice and cried aloud the name of the deputy.
To the north once more the Captain headed, and with no word from VB took up the floundering way again. The boy looked behind and saw the others commence the drop down the moonlit point—saw one of the blurs slump quickly and heard a man scream. Then he leaned low on the stallion and talked to the horse as he would talk to a child who could pilot him to safety.
Behind him, along the road, came the blot again, now, however, smaller. VB did not know that it was Julio who had fallen, but he knew with a fierce delight that the Captain, running on his bare spirit, had killed off one of the pursuers!
The boy grew hysterical. He chattered to the stallion, knowing nothing of the words he uttered. At times his lips moved but uttered no sound. Continually his hands sought his breast. He knew from the dampness that crept down his side, on down into the trouser leg, that the wound still bled, that his life was running out through the gash.
Through the clamoring of his heart a familiar ache came into his throat, and the boy lifted his voice into the night with a rant of rage, of self-denunciation.
"Oh, Captain! You were the price!" he moaned.
But still he wanted—just one drink! Not to satisfy that craving now, but to keep him alive, a legitimate use for stimulant.
The stallion ceased pretense of galloping. Now and then he even dropped from his uncertain trotting to a walk.
VB, watching behind, could just make out those other travelers in the light of the low-hanging moon which seemed to balance on the ragged horizon and linger for sight of the finish of this grim drama worked out in the lonely stretches. As the horse stumbled more and more frequently under him VB knew that those who pressed him were coming closer. Then a flash of flame and a bullet spattered itself against a rock ahead and to the right.
"They're closer, Captain!" he muttered grimly. "The game's going against us—against you. I'm too much of a burden—too much weight."
His mind seized upon the aimless words. The suddenness of his shifting in the saddle made the stallion stagger, for VB's whole weight went into the right stirrup. He drew the other up with fiendish tinges shooting through his breast and tore at the cinch. It came loose. The saddle turned. VB flung his arms about the Captain's neck and kicked it from under him.
"Fifty pounds gone!" he muttered triumphantly, and the horse tossed his head, quickening the trot, trying once again the heavy gallop.
VB could hear the horse breathing through his mouth. He looked down and saw that the long tongue flopped from the lips with every movement of the fine head. Tears came to his eyes as he caressed the Captain's withers frantically.
"Can I do more, boy?" he asked in a strained voice. "Can I do more?"
It was as though he pleaded with a dying human.
"Yes, I can do more!" he cried a moment later in answer to his own question. "You've given your whole to me; now I'll give you back your freedom, make you as free as you were the day I took you. I'll strip you, boy!"
He reached far out along the neck, drawing his weight up on the withers, and loosed the head-stall. The bridle fell into the road and the Captain ran naked! And, as though to show his gratitude, the horse shook his head groggily and reeled on in his crazy progress.
A half mile farther on the Captain fell. VB went down heavily and mounted the waiting horse again in a daze—from which he was roused by the fresh gushing on his breast. Another shot from behind—then two close together.
Dawn was coming. He looked around vaguely. The moon was slipping away. Perhaps yet it would be in at the finish. The shimmering light of new day was taking from objects their ghostly quality; making them real. The men behind could see VB—and they were firing!
The boy said no word to the Captain. He merely clamped his knees tighter and leaned lower on his neck. He had ceased to think, ceased to struggle. His trust, his life, was in the shaking legs of the animal he rode, whose sweat soaked through his clothing to mingle with the blood there.
The stallion breathed in great moaning sobs, as though his heart were bursting, as though his lungs were raw and bleeding. He reeled from side to side crazily. Now and then he ran out of the road and floundered blindly back. His head hung low, almost to his knees, and swung from side to side with each step, and at intervals he raised it as though it were a great weight, to gasp—and to sob!
From behind, bullets. Rhues and Matson fired grimly. They had ceased to lash their ponies, for it was useless. The beasts were beyond giving better service in return for punishment. Their sides dripped blood, but they were beyond suffering. Handicapped as he had been, the Captain had held them off, almost stride for stride.
Better light now, but their shooting could not hope to find a mark except through chance. They cursed in glad snarls as they saw the stallion reel, sink to his knees; then snarled again as they saw him recover and go on at his drunken trot.
Before VB's eyes floated a blotch of color. It was golden, a diffused light that comforted him; that, for some incomprehensible reason, was soothing to the senses. It eased the wound, too, and put new strength in his heart so that he could feel the warm blood seeping slowly into his numb arms and hands and fingers. He smiled foolishly and hugged the Captain's neck as the horse reeled along. Oh, it was a glorious color! He remembered the day he had seen a little patch of it scudding along the roadway in the sunshine. Why, it had seemed like concentrated sunshine itself.
"Gail," he murmured. "It was you—I didn't want to put—that mark—on you!"
The nature of that color became clear to him and he roused himself. It was a light—a light in a window—the window of a ranch house—Dick Worth's ranch house!
Bullets had ceased to zip and sing and spatter. He did not turn to see what had become of his pursuers, for he was capable of only one thought at a time.
"Dick Worth! Dick Worth!" he screamed.
Then he looked behind. Away to the left he saw two riders pushing through the dawn, détouring. And he laughed, almost gayly.
Another blotch of light, a bigger one, showed in the young day. It was an opened door, and a deep chest gave forth an answer to his cry. Dick Worth stepped from the threshold of his home and ran to the gate to see better this crazy figure which lurched toward him. It was a man on foot, hatless, his face gray like the sky above, hair tousled, eyes glowing red. He stumbled to the fence and leaned there for support, holding something forward, something limp and bloodstained.
"Dick—it's Kelly's money belt—Rhues—he killed him— He shot me—he's got the money—on him—he's swinging off west—two of 'em— Their horses are—all in— He—he shot Kelly because—I wouldn't take—a drink—he—and I need—a—drink—"
He slumped down against the fence.