AN EPIC BATTLE
The station house was extensive. It was a bunkhouse of lesser
dimensions.
Jeff's eyes moved swiftly over the dim interior. The remoter corners
of the place were shadowed. But the light was sufficient to yield him
a view of four squalid bunks on which the many-hued blankets were
tumbled. The walls bore signs of personal effort at decoration. There
were photographs over each bunk, tacked up and disfigured by flies.
There were odd prints pasted on the rough log walls, the seams of which
were more or less adequately filled with mud to keep the weather out.
There were two rough window openings, one in each side wall. The only
entrance or exit was the door at the northern end, through which he had
approached. At the other end, directly opposite this, an oil lamp was
shedding its feeble rays through a well-smoked chimney glass. It was
standing on a small improvised table which divided two bunks set on
wooden trestles. The whole interior was perhaps thirty feet in length
and twelve feet wide, a roomy, unkempt shanty, which served its simple
purpose as a shelter for men unused to any of the comforts of life.
The object which caught and held Jeff's instant attention was the
figure of the man seated on the side of one of the bunks, beside the
table on which the lamp stood. It was the figure of Sikkem Bruce,
bearing no trace whatever of any mortal injury, and with a look of
wide-eyed surprise upon his evil countenance.
Jeff moved up the room. He approached without haste. His eyes were
steady, and his expression one of tight-lipped determination. There
was something coldly commanding in his attitude. His fair, bronzed
features, keen, set, displayed no weakening. His body seemed poised
ready for everything that could possibly happen. The latent power and
vigor of his movements were tremendous. He carried no weapons of
defense in view, and his dress was a simple loose jacket over a cotton
shirt, and, for nether garments, a pair of loose riding breeches which
terminated in soft leather top-boots.
Sikkem's eyes were on him the whole time. There was even some slight
apprehension in them at the sight of that swift, voiceless approach.
Jeff came to a halt before him, and it was the ranch hand who found
speech most necessary.
"Say, I didn't guess you was gettin' around to-night, boss," he said
with some show of ease.
"No?"
"I sure didn't."
Jeff's retort flashed out.
"Then what did you send that youngster in for with mouthful of durned
lies?"
Sikkem stared. But his look was unconvincing. Moments passed before
his reply came, and in those moments the keen eyes of his employer were
busy. The man was still in the working kit of a cowpuncher. Even to
the chapps, and the prairie hat crushed down on his ugly bullet head.
Then, too, his pair of guns were still strapped about his waist. None
of these things escaped Jeff, any more than did the fellow's clumsy
regard. He wondered how much truth--if any--lay behind that mask of
wicked eyes and brutish features.
"I'm waiting."
Jeff's demand came with a rasp. The man's delay in reply had conveyed
all he wanted to know of the truth in him.
"Wot youngster? I tell you I didn't send no one in." There was
truculence in the denial. "Wot's the lies?"
The ranchman was no match for the keen mind of his employer. In brute
force he might have been more than his equal. But even that was
doubtful. While he was speaking Jeff moved. Up to that moment he had
been facing the foreman with his back turned toward the distant door.
Now his movement placed him against the table with his back to the
other empty bunk, and his focus took in not only the man before him,
but the shadowy outline of the distant half-open door.
"It's the boy we took on the other day at--your recommendation. Your
recommendation. Get me? Guess he came with the yarn you were shot to
death. You'd located the rustlers' camp. You needed to see me quick."
Jeff's words came swiftly. Then after a pause he added: "You didn't
send him along? Who did?"
As Jeff watched the man's deliberate shake of the head he became aware
of a muffled sound, somewhere away beyond the door. It was faint, but,
to him, unmistakable. He gave no sign.
"Where are the other boys?" he demanded.
"Out on cattle guard."
The movement beyond the door again penetrated the silence of the hut.
Now it was that the ranchman made his mistake. Only for an instant did
he turn his head and eyes in the direction of the sound. But it was
sufficient.
Jeff's voice rasped again.
"Stand up, darn you! Stand up!"
Sikkem's gaze came back abruptly, and on the instant his right hand
flew to his waist for his guns. But the muzzle of Jeff's revolver was
within a foot of his head, and behind it his coldly shining eyes.
Sikkem's hand dropped from his waist. He stood up. The law of the gun
was powerfully ingrained upon his mind.
"Loose those guns at your waist--quick! Let 'em drop on the bunk!
Quick, or I'll pump you full of lead!"
The deadliness of Jeff's command was irresistible. The power of that
leveled gun indisputable. The buckle was loosened, and the weapons
fell on the blankets behind the ranchman.
"Now push your hands up! Right up!"
The command was obeyed on the instant, but the look which accompanied
the movement was as deadly as human passion could make it.
"Back away! Back to the far end! Sharp!"
Sikkem moved. But his movement was not rapid enough. Jeff urged him.
In the pause Jeff's straining ears caught again the sound of movement,
and he wondered why development was not precipitated. Perhaps---- But
Sikkem had nearly reached the distant wall, and, at that instant, a
whistle shrilled through the building.
Jeff knew he was trapped. But, with a wonderful sense of detachment,
mind and body worked almost electrically. His revolver spat out its
vicious report. For the fraction of a second he held the smoking lamp
poised in his other hand. Then, like a shooting star, it flew through
the adjacent window and fell extinguished amidst the crash of its own
glass. It was at the complete fall of darkness that the door slammed
closed, and half a dozen shots rang out through the building, followed
by the "plonk" of the bullets embedding themselves in the solid logs
immediately behind where the rancher had been standing.
But Jeff was no longer there. There had been a simultaneous clatter of
falling bunk boards. There was the rustling of straw. Then a sound of
scrambling, and, after that, a dead silence. The darkness was complete
except for the faint silhouette of the windows against the dim
starlight beyond them.
Jeff had taken the big chance. What remained now must be met as
circumstance permitted. The blood in him was fired. The savage
delight of battle. He would sell the last breath in his body at the
highest price he could make his enemies pay. He had walked into a trap
laid by the rustlers, headed, perhaps, by Sikkem Bruce, with his eyes
wide open, and some almost insane yearning made him glad.
Now he crouched down against the wall beside the table. He had flung
up a barrier of straw palliasse before him. It was not as a protection
against gun-fire, but to screen his movements should his opponents
produce a light. Then, too, there was another thought in his mind.
The place became alive with sounds, voiceless, muffled sounds of
cautious movement. It was the movement of men who know that death is
lurking at every turn. Nor could they tell whence it was most likely
to come. It was a moment of tense and straining nerves wherein the wit
of one man had discounted the elaborate plan to murder of those whose
indifference to death only shrank from the contemplation of their own.
Jeff's eyes strained against the darkness. The windows stood out in
silhouette. From these he had no fear. He knew, and he knew that
these ruffians would know, the dangers attending themselves from any
attack upon him from such a direction. The advantage would be entirely
his, since he had possessed himself of Sikkem's complete arsenal. He
knew it was for him to await the fire of these men, every shot of which
would yield him a sure target.
A flash broke the blackness ahead of him. The bullet sank into the
woodwork just above his head with a vicious splash. But he refrained
from reply. Another crack split the silence, and the wall to the left
of him flung back its response. Still he offered no reply.
His eyes were searching, searching. And a surge of excitement suddenly
thrilled him.
Two shots came on the same instant. One slithered hotly in the flesh
of his shoulder, but the other struck wide of him.
The wound gave him no concern. Every sense, every faculty was
concentrated on one thought, on one object. A dim, fine-drawn but
uneven line of shadowy light had grown out of the darkness to his now
accustomed eyes. It was vague, so vague that it required the greatest
concentration to detect. But he recognized it for what it was, and a
savage delight possessed him as he observed that there were breaks in
its continuity. The line was waist high, and lateral, and he
interpreted it to suit himself.
He raised his gun and took steady aim at one of the breaks. His shot
was deliberate, careful, since the sight of his weapon, even the weapon
itself, remained invisible in the dark. He fired, and dropped himself
prone behind his barrier.
A bitter curse followed by a groan of pain was the answer to his shot.
Then, where that break in the shadowy line of light had been, now the
line was unbroken.
A fierce glee permeated him. The curse, the moan had been music to
him. But it only required a second before he had the enemy's retort.
It came with a fusillade. And every shot seemed to find practically
the same spot on the wall. He knew that the flash of his gun had been
the target. He knew he had only escaped by a fraction of time.
His shoulder stung him. But his will, his savage yearning for the
continuance of the fight, left him disregarding. There was more to
come, and he knew it. Nor did he care how much. The blood was hot in
his brain. No pain, nothing mattered. Again he searched along that
lateral line of light.
He was reaching out far beyond his retreat. He had stealthily crawled
to the left of the table. Again his weapon was raised against another
break in that telltale line of light, this time at a point where the
angle of the building must be. A moment passed while he judged his
aim. It was by no means easy. Instinct was his only guide. That
instinct which belongs to the man accustomed to the constant use of a
revolver.
His shot rang out. Again came a cry, inarticulate, fierce. Then
followed the sound of a falling body. Then he let loose a second shot.
But even as it sped he had his answer. Four tongues of flame leaped
out at him in the darkness, and four bullets smote viciously into the
wood behind him.
His second shot had cost him a sharp penalty. The flesh of his forearm
had been ripped by one of those four bullets and he felt the trickle of
warm blood over the unscored flesh.
He crouched behind his barrier. The joy of battle for the highest
stakes for which a man can play was undiminished in him. The wounds he
had received left him all unconcerned. In the thrill of the moment he
had no time for them. The desire to kill was strong, and he knew he
could already count two victims.
But the general in him was foremost, even in the excitement of battle.
The number of his opponents, their next move. These things concerned
him seriously.
He searched the line of light with eager eyes. He listened to the
sound of movement. These things were all he had to rely on, and on
their accurate reading depended his chances of victory or defeat, with
its certainty of swift death.
In two places there ware still definite breaks in the line. He knew he
had accounted for two of the enemy. Originally a volley of six shots
had come at him. There were two unaccounted for. Where were these?
They were not standing.
He looked for no depths of subtlety in the methods of these men. He
understood their ruffianism too well. Therefore the sound of movement
that reached him suggested the obvious result of their first failure.
It was the presage of an attack at close quarters.
He listened intently. The sounds were of shuffling bodies, moving
uncertainly, possibly fearful of contact with obstruction which might
betray them. And he calculated they were approaching low down along
the side walls, thus hoping to offer the least target possible. If
they reached him the chances would be all against him. They must not
reach him. His decision was promptly taken.
He raised one of Sikkem's guns. It was heavy, and a sense of pleasure
filled him as he felt the enormous bore of the muzzle with one finger.
Stealthily he raised himself to his full height behind his barrier. He
leveled his gun at a spot just below the right hand window, where the
wall rose up out of the floor. There was no obstacle intervening.
A moment later the crack of the gun burst through the silence. Then,
on the instant, he flung himself prone across the table. His answer
came like lightning. Four shots. And three of them harmlessly tore
their way into the bowels of the woodwork. The fourth had come from
the direction in which he had aimed.
A fierce spasm of pain through his chest blinded him mentally and
physically for the moment. But, by an almost superhuman effort, he
recovered himself. He knew he was hit, and hit badly. Something
seemed to have broken inside him, just under his left armpit.
He forced himself to an upright position and flung out his gun arm.
His eyes were again on the line of light. A fury of recklessness was
urging him. There were the breaks, and he blazed at each in turn,
carefully, deliberately. A moment later two shots came from the right
and left of him, and he dropped down behind his barrier, but not before
he had heard the death-cries of fierce blasphemy at the far end of the
room.
He lay behind his shelter breathing hard and suffering an agony of
physical pain. The sweat poured down his forehead. It seemed to him
that everything was somehow receding from him, even the sense of his
own danger. In these feelings he realized how near he was to defeat,
and with all his will he set himself to conquer his weakness. A few
moments passed. His pain eased. Then, with all the recklessness of
the gambler, he prepared for his final throw.
He was certain he had accounted for four of the enemy. Four. He
calculated there were still two remaining. He shifted his position,
moving himself clear of his shelter. A hell of suffering was endured
in the process, and the sweat poured out afresh upon his forehead. He
gritted his teeth with superlative determination and flung back the
dreadful faintness seeking to smother his powers.
He raised himself to a sitting posture. He sought support from the
wall behind him. Then, with unbroken nerve, he raised both Sikkem's
guns, one in each hand. Without a tremor he held them, and his aim
took in the two points at which he felt the remaining foe were
advancing upon him. Oh, for one moment of light wherein to assure
himself! But the thought passed as it came, followed by a wild, simple
hope that one of his shots might find its billet.
He pressed the trigger in each hand. He fired rapidly. He fired until
both guns were empty. Then he flung them to the ground with a clatter.
For an instant he thrilled at the sound of a cry of pain, and the
fierce accompanying blasphemy. Then he flung himself down and crawled
to his retreat behind the palliasse, convinced that the cry was in the
voice of Sikkem Bruce.
His sufferings were well-nigh unendurable. His very breathing caused
him an exquisite pain. He even found himself wondering how much longer
he could endure.
But his work was not yet finished. If he must die he would die
fighting.
Now, blending with fresh sounds of movement along the side walls,
another sound added its threat to the quiet of the room. It came from
behind the straw palliasse. There was heavy breathing, almost gasping.
There was a distinct gritting of teeth. But there was also a sound of
the effort which caused these things in the wounded man. There was a
sharp ripping and tearing, the rustle of straw and--something else.
The movements were hasty, desperately hasty. Movements which suggested
the defender's realization of the narrow limits of time before his
powers would become completely exhausted.
These things lasted a matter of seconds only. Then the threat broke.
The quiet was shocked into desperate action. There was the shout of
human voices. There was the rush and scramble of feet. Then, in the
midst of the tumult, a great tongue of flame leaped up from the heart
of the straw palliasse.
Its fierce, ruddy light revealed the faces of two men leaping to the
attack of the wounded defender. They were within a yard of their goal.
But even as they were closing upon him they reeled back before the new
terror whose dread was overwhelming even in face of their murderous
lust.
The flame shot up toward the roof. Jeff staggered to his feet bearing
in his arms the blazing bundle. Higher he raised it. Higher and
higher, till the devouring flame licked at the parched thatch of grass
roof above. It caught in a second. The flames swept up along the
rough rafters till they reached the pitch of the roof. In a moment
great billows of smoke were rolling out of the dry crevices.
Just for one instant, before the fog closed down upon the whole
interior, Jeff beheld the result of his work. The men had fled toward
the closed door, and, on the ground, against the far wall, he had a
glimpse of five bodies lying crumpled up where his guns had laid them.
Suddenly a great shout reached him from without.
"Ho, Jeff! Ho, boy!"
It was a deep-throated roar which drowned the hiss and crackle of the
blazing straw.
Jeff's answer rang through the burning structure with all the power of
his lungs.
"The door! Bust it! Quick, Bud! Bust it, an' stand clear!"
For answer there was a crash on the woodwork outside. He waited for no
more. With a wild rush through the blinding, choking fog of smoke he
charged down the room. With all his might he flung the blazing
palliasse from his scorched hands. He had no idea of the direction in
which it went. His one desire now was to reach the door as it gave
under the sledge-hammer attacks of the men outside.
He heard a crash and rending of woodwork. He could see nothing. He
was incapable of further effort. The end had come all too soon. He
staggered blindly, helplessly. His tottering limbs gave under him.
Suffocation gripped him by the throat. He was conscious of the rush of
a figure toward him. The sound of his name shrieked in a woman's
voice. Then there were shots fired. He heard them. And it seemed
there were many of them, and the sound was blurred, and vague, and
distant from his ears. He fell. He knew he fell. For hours it seemed
to him he continued to fall in an abyss of blackness that was wholly
horrifying. It was a blackness peopled with hideous invisible shadows.
So impenetrable was the inky void that even sound had no place in it.