THE NIGHT TRAIL
The trail declined over a long, gradual slope. At the bottom of it
was a broad, almost dried-out slough. A wooden culvert spanned the
reed-grown watercourse. Then the trail made a sharpish ascent beyond,
and lost itself behind a distant bush, beyond which again stretched
out a broad expanse of grass.
Two horsemen were speeding down the longer slope. Their horses were
fresh and full of speed. There was no speech passing between them.
Eyes and ears were alert, and their grimly set faces gave warning of
the anxious thought teeming through their brains.
The indications of the night were nothing to them. The trail might
ring with the beat of their horses' hoofs, or only reply with the soft
thud of a deep, sandy surface. They were not out to consider either
their horses or themselves. Each knew that his journey was one of
desperate emergency, and one of them, at least, cared nothing what
might be his sacrifice, even if it were life itself.
The horses came down the hill with a headlong rush. Loose reins told
of the men's feelings, and the creatures, themselves, as though imbued
with something of their riders' spirits, abandoned themselves to the
race with equal recklessness.
Halfway down the hill the foremost of the two, the smaller and
slighter, abruptly flung a word across his shoulder to his companion
behind.
"Someone coming," he said, in a deep, hoarse voice.
The second man beat his horse's flanks with his heels, and drew
abreast.
"I can't see," he replied, shading his eyes from the light of the
moon, which, at that moment, shone out from behind a cloud.
The other pointed beyond the culvert.
"There. Riding like hell. Gee! Look--it's--trouble."
Bill Bryant now discerned the hazy outline of a moving figure. It
seemed to him that whoever, or whatever it was, it was aware of their
approach and desirous of avoiding them. The moving object had suddenly
left the trail. It had taken to the grass, and was heading straight
for the miry slough.
"The fool. The madman," muttered Charlie. "Does he know what he's
making for?"
"Is it--a stream, Charlie?"
Bill's question seemed to irritate his brother.
"Stream?--Damn it, it's mire. His horse'll throw himself. Who----?"
He leaned forward in the saddle searching the distance for the
identity of the oncoming horseman. His horse shot forward, and Bill's
was hard put to it to keep pace.
"Can't we shout a warning?" cried Bill, caught in his brother's
anxious excitement.
"Warning be damned," snapped Charlie over his shoulder. "This is no
time to be shouting around. We don't----Hallo! He's realized where
he's heading. He's----. Oh, the hopeless, seven sorts of damned idiot.
Look! Look at that! There he goes. Poor devil, what a smash. Hurry
up!"
The two men made a further call upon their horses, urged by the sight
of the horseman beyond the slough. He had crashed headlong into the
half-dry watercourse at the very edge of the culvert.
The man's disaster was quite plain, even at that distance. He had
evidently been unaware of his danger in leaving the trail for a
cross-country run to avoid those he saw approaching him. As he came
down to the slough, all too late he had realized whither he was
heading. Then, instead of keeping on, and taking his chances of
getting through the mire, he had made a frantic effort to swing his
horse aside and regain the culvert. His reckless speed had been his
undoing. His impetus had been so great that the poor beast under him
had only the more surely plunged to disaster, from the very magnitude
of its effort to avoid it.
Charlie was the first to reach the culvert. In a moment he was out of
the saddle.
The stranger's floundering horse struggled, and finally scrambled to
its feet. The rider was close beside it, but lay quite still where he
had fallen. To Charlie's critical eye there was little doubt as to
what had happened. The adjacency of the edge of the culvert warned him
of what had befallen. The rider must have struck it as he fell.
As Bill dismounted he pointed at the stranger's horse.
"Grab it," cried Charlie. The next moment was kneeling beside the
fallen man.
Then, in a moment, the wondering Bill, looking on, beheld a sight he
would never forget.
Charlie bent down over the silent figure. He reached out and placed an
arm under the man's body and turned him over. The next instant a cry,
half-stifled in his throat, a cry as of some dumb creature mortally
wounded, a cry full of hopeless, dreadful pain rose from the kneeling
man, and its agony smote the sympathetic brother as though with a
mortal blow.
Then came words, a rush of words, imploring, agonized.
"Kate! Kate! Oh, Kate, why did you do it? Why? Oh, God, she's dead!
Kate! Kate! Speak to me. For God's sake speak to me. You're not dead.
No, no. Not dead. It can't be."
The man's hand caressed the soft pale cheek under it. He had thrust
back the prairie hat which still retained its position, pressed low
upon the head, and a mass of dark, luxuriant hair fell away from its
place, coiled tightly about the small head.
At that moment the horrified voice of Bill broke in.
"Charlie! Charlie! I can hear horses galloping in the distance!" he
cried, alarmed, without actually realizing why. And some sort of
desperate instinct made him thrust his hand into his revolver pocket.
For an instant only Charlie looked up at him in a dazed, only
half-understanding. Then his eyes lit with a stirring alarm as he
turned a listening ear to windward.
The next moment his arms were flung about the body of the disguised
woman at his feet, and, with a great effort, he lifted her and
struggled to his feet.
Bill stared in stupid wonderment when he beheld the figure of Kate
Seton clad in man's clothing, but he continued to hold on to the
horses, and, with a hand on his revolver, awaited his brother's
commands.
At that moment Kate opened her eyes and gazed into the dark face above
her. In a moment the ardent eyes of Charlie smiled down at her. Then
the injured woman's lips opened, and, as they formulated her halting
words, his smile gave place to something like panic. She was still in
a fainting condition, but power was vouchsafed her to impart a story
which drove him to something like a frenzy of activity.
"It's the police," she gasped. "It's--it's shooting. They're--behind.
They're right after me--O-oh!"
She had fainted again with her last word, and the dead weight in the
man's arms became almost unsupportable.
But now there was no longer any uncertainty. Kate was alive. The
police were behind. At all costs--the woman he loved must be saved.
Charlie looked up at Bill, and his voice became harshly commanding.
"Quick! On your horse, man," he cried, almost fiercely. "That's it,"
as Bill flung himself into the saddle without question. "Here, now
take her. You're strong. Get her across your saddle in front of you.
There, that's it--lift. So. Gently. Get her right across your lap.
That's it. Now take my horse and lead it. So."
Bill obeyed like a well-disciplined child, and with equal enthusiasm.
He leaned down from the saddle and lifted the fainting woman out of
his brother's arms. She was like a babe in his powerful arms. He laid
her across his knee. Then, as his brother passed the reins of his own
horse up to him, he took them and slung them over his supporting arm.
The command died out of Charlie's tones, and his whole attitude became
an irresistible appeal.
"Now, Bill," he cried, urgently. "Down there, along the bank of the
slough." He pointed away southwards. "Along there, into that bush. Get
into hiding and remain till the coast is clear. Then get her back to
her home. Leave the police to me, and--and remember she's all I care
for--in the world."
Bill waited no further word. Once he understood what was required of
him he could do it--he would do it--with all his might. He moved off
with all the confident air of his simple, purposeful nature.
Charlie watched him go. He saw him vanish amid the shadows of the
bush. Then he turned to Kate's horse and sprang into the saddle.
For a moment he sat there watching and listening. But his purpose was
not quite clear. It had not been clear to Bill, who had asked no
question, feeling such to be superfluous at the moment.
But his own purpose was clear enough to Charlie's devoted mind. There
must be no chance of Kate's discovery by the police. Whatever had
happened before, there must be no chance of harm to her now. His mind
was quite clear. His thought flowed swiftly and keenly.
The distant sound of galloping horses was growing. The summit of the
rising ground over which they must come was not more than two hundred
yards behind him.
He waited. The clatter of hoofs was growing louder with each passing
second. The police must certainly be near the top of the rise now.
Bill was well away. He was well in the bush by this time.
Hark! Yes. There they were. The moon was hidden just now, but even so
Charlie could see the bobbing figures at the hilltop.
Suddenly he rammed his heels into his horse's flanks and dashed off up
the slope which he had so recently descended. As he went he drew his
revolver and fired two shots in swift succession in the direction of
the horsemen approaching. Well enough he knew, as he raced on toward
the village, that the police were beyond his range, but his purpose
was that there should be no doubt in their minds that he--he was their
quarry--that he was the man they had already been pursuing so far.
* * * * *
Ten men made up the tally of the pursuers riding with Inspector Fyles.
McBain was not among them. He had remained with the abandoned
buckboard while the rest of the police were scouring the neighborhood
for the fugitives from the first encounter.
As Fyles came over the rise, and beheld the culvert below him, and
heard the two defiant shots hurled in his direction, a thrill of
satisfaction swept through him. The man was less than three hundred
yards ahead of him with a long hill to climb, and something over a
mile to go before the village, and the possibility of safety, was
reached.
There was no match in the country for Peter when it came to a long,
uphill chase. He told himself the man hadn't a dog's chance with Peter
hard on his heels.
"We've got him, boys," he cried to his men, in his moment of
exuberance. "He ought to have been half a mile on by the start he got.
It's the poor devil of a horse playing out. He's beat--beat to death.
Now, boys, hard on my heels for a spurt."
Peter leaped ahead under the sharp reminder of the spur, and, in a few
moments, the clatter of iron-shod hoofs left the wooden culvert behind
it, and the race up the hill began.
The moon now blazed out, as though at last it had definitely decided
to throw its weight in against the fugitive. The summer clouds were
lifting and vanishing with that wonderful rapidity with which, once
the brilliant moon gains sway, she seems to sweep all obstruction from
her chilly path.
The steely light poured down upon the slim back of the fugitive, and
left both horse and rider sharply outlined. The distance diminished
under the terrific spurt of the police horses, and a confident look
began to dawn in the eyes of their riders.
They were gaining so rapidly that it seemed hardly necessary to press
their bronchos so hard. The top of the hill was still a quarter of a
mile away. The fugitive's evidently wearying beast could never make
that last final incline. The man would be forced to turn and defend
himself or yield for very helplessness. The whole thing was too easy.
It was absurdly easy. Nor could there be any sort of a "scrap." They
were ten to one. It was disappointing. These riders of the plains
reveled in a genuine fight.
But Fyles's contentment suddenly received a disconcerting shock. Peter
was stretching out like a greyhound. The pace at which they pursued
the hunted hare was terrific. But now, although they were, if
anything, traveling faster, they seemed to be no longer gaining. The
three hundred yards intervening had, in that first rush, been reduced
to nearly one hundred. But, somehow, to his disquiet Fyles now
realized that there was no further encroachment.
He shook Peter up and left his companions behind. But it quickly
became evident he could make no further impression. If anything, his
quarry was gaining. An unpleasant conviction began to make itself felt
in the mind of the policeman. The man had been foxing. He had been
saving his horse up for that hill, calculating to a fraction the
distance he had yet to go.
He called to his men to race for it.
They came up on his heels. The man nearest to him was a corporal.
"We're not done with him yet, corporal," he said grimly. "I wanted to
get him without trouble. Guess we'll have to bail him up. Once over
the top of that hill, he runs into the bush on the outskirts of the
village. We daren't risk it."
The corporal's eyes lit.
"Shall we open out and give him a round, sir?"
Fyles nodded.
"Let 'em fire low. Bring his horse down."
The corporal turned back to his men, and gave the necessary order.
"Open out!" he cried. "It's just over a hundred yards. Fire low, and
get his horse. We'll be on him before he can pick himself up."
"There's fifty dollars between you if you can bring him down and keep
his skin whole," added Fyles.
Still keeping their pace, the men spread out from the trail,
withdrawing the carbines from their leather buckets as they rode. Then
came the ominous clicking of the breeches as cartridges were thrust
home. Fyles, with Corporal Mooney, kept to the trail.
A moment passed. Then the first carbine spat out its vicious pellet.
Fyles, watching, fancied that the fugitive had begun to flog his
horse. Now, in swift succession, the other carbines added their
chorus. There was no check in the pace of the pursuers. The
well-trained horses were used to the work.
The first volley seemed ineffective. The men had not yet got their
sights. The fugitive had another fifty yards before he reached the top
of the long incline.
The distance to the top of the hill was lessening rapidly. Fyles was
becoming anxious. It had become a matter of seconds before the man
would clear the ridge.
"Keep low," cried the corporal, warningly, in the excitement of the
moment. "A ricochet--anything will do. Get his horse."
The horseman was twenty yards from the crest of the hill. Fifteen. The
carbines again rattled out their hurried fire.
Ten yards--in a moment he would be----
A cloud of dust arose suddenly among the feet of the fugitive's horse.
It cleared. Fyles gave a sigh of relief and raced Peter forward. The
man's horse had crashed to the ground.
* * * * *
Fyles was gazing down upon the body of the fallen man. The horse was
lying a few yards away, struggling to rise. A great welter of blood
flooded the sandy track all about it.
A trooper walked up to the horse. He placed the muzzle of his carbine
close behind the poor creature's ear. The next moment there was a
sharp report. The head dropped heavily to the ground and remained
quite still.
The corporal looked up at his superior. He was kneeling beside the
body of Charlie Bryant.
"I'm afraid it's all up with him, sir," he said seriously. "But he
wasn't hit. I can't find a sign of a hit. I--think his neck's
broken--or--or something. It was the fall. He's dead, sir--sure."
The officer's face never changed its stern expression. But the
suspicion of a sigh escaped him. He was by no means an unfeeling man,
but he had his duty to do. In this case there was more than his duty
concerned. Hence the sigh. Hence any lack of appreciation.
"It's the man I expected," he said. "A foolish fellow, but--a smart
man. You're sure he's dead? Sure?"
The corporal nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"Poor devil. I'm sorry."