“The chief is talkin’ fast and hard.
The young feller shakes his head. Drew begins
talkin’ again. You’d think he was
pleadin’ for his life in front of a jury that
meant him wrong. His hands go out like he was
makin’ an election speech. He holds one
hand down like he was measurin’ the height of
a kid. He throws up his arms again like he’d
lost everything in the world.
“And now Bard has dropped the hand from his
face. He looks sort of interested. He steps
closer to the grave again. Drew holds out both
his arms. By God, boys, he’s pleadin’
with Bard.
“And the head of Bard is dropped. How’s
it goin’ to turn out? Drew wins, of course.
There goes Bard’s hand out as if it was pulled
ag’in’ his will. Drew catches it
in both his own. Boys, here’s where we grab
our hosses and beat it.”
He turned from the rocks in haste.
“What d’you mean?” cried Conklin.
“Steve, are you goin’ to leave us here
to finish the job you started?”
“Finish it? You fools! Don’t
you see that Drew and Bard is pals now? If we
couldn’t finish Bard alone, how’d we make
out ag’in’ the two of them? The game’s
up, boys; the thing that’s left is for us to
save our hides—if we can—before
them two start after us. If they do start, then
God help us all!”
He was already in the saddle.
“Wait!” called Conklin. “One
of ’em’s a tenderfoot. The other has
left his gun here. What we got to fear from ’em?”
And Nash snarled in return: “If there was
a chance, don’t you think I’d take it?
Don’t you see I’m givin’ up everythin’
that amounts to a damn with me? Tenderfoot?
He may act Eastern and he may talk Eastern, but he’s
got Western blood. There ain’t no other
way of explainin’ it. And Drew? He
didn’t have no gun when he busted the back of
old Piotto. I say, there’s two men, armed
or not, and between ’em they can do more’n
all of us could dream of. Boys, are you comin’?”
They went. The wounded were dragged to their
feet and hoisted to their horses, groaning. At
a slow walk they started down through the trees.
Evening fell; the shadows slanted about them.
They moved faster—at a trot—at
a gallop. They were like men flying from a certain
ruin. Beyond the margin of the bright lake they
fled and lost themselves in the vast, secret heart
of the mountain-desert.
SALLY WEEPS
All that day, in a silence broken only by murmurs
and side glances, Anthony and Sally Fortune moved
about the old house from window to window, and from
crack to crack, keeping a steady eye on the commanding
rocks above. In one of those murmurs they made
their resolution. When night came they would
rush the rocks, storm them from the front, and take
their chance with what might follow. But the night
promised to give but little shelter to their stalking.
For in the late afternoon a broad moon was already
climbing up from the east; the sky was cloudless;
there was a threat of keen, revealing moonshine for
the night. Only desperation could make them attempt
to storm the rock, but by the next morning, at the
latest, reinforcements were sure to come, and then
their fight would be utterly hopeless.
