By one thing he knew the utter desperation of Hal Dozier. For the man
had fired while Andrew's back was turned. The bullet had followed the
warning cry as swiftly as the strike of a snake follows its rattle. Luck
and his sudden leap forward had unbalanced the nice aim of Dozier, and
perhaps his mental agitation had contributed to it. But, at any rate,
Andrew was troubled as he cleared the edge of the trees and cantered
Sally not too swiftly along the Little Silver River toward Las Casas
mountains, a little east of south.
He did not hurry her, partly because he wished to stay close and make
sure of the number and force of his pursuers, and partly because he
already had a lead sufficient to keep out of any but chance rifle shots.
He had not long to wait. Men boiled out of the village like hornets out
of a shaken nest. He could see them buckling on belts while they were
riding with the reins in their teeth. And they came like the wind,
yelling at the sight of their quarry. Who would not kill a horse for the
sake of saying that he had been within pistol range of the great outlaw?
But, fast as their horses ran, Dozier, on Gray Peter, was able to keep
up with them and also to range easily from group to group. Truly, Gray
Peter was a glorious animal! If he were allowed to stretch out after the
mare, what would the result be?
The pursuers, under the direction of Dozier, spread across the river
bottom and, having formed so that no tricky doubling could leave them in
the lurch on a blind trail, they began to use a new set of tactics.
Dozier kept Gray Peter at a steady pace, never varying his gait. But,
on either side of him groups of his followers urged their horses forward
at breakneck speed. Three or four would send home the spurs and rush up
the river bottom after Andrew. If he did not hurry on they opened fire
with their rifles from a short distance and sent a hail of random
bullets, but Andrew knew that a random bullet carries just as much force
as a well-aimed one, and chance might be on the side of one of those
shots. He dared not allow them to come too close. Yet his heart rejoiced
as he watched the manner in which Sally accepted these challenges. She
never once had to lurch into her racing gait; she took the rushes of the
cow ponies behind her by merely lengthening her stride until the horses
behind her were winded and had to fall back.
If Andrew had let out Sally she would have walked away from them all,
but he dared not do that. For, after he had run the heart out of the
commoner ones, there remained Gray Peter in reserve, never changing his
pace, never hurrying, falling often far back, as the groups one after
another pushed close to Sally and made her spurt, gaining again when the
spurts ended one by one.
There were two hours of daylight; there was one hour of dusk; and all
that time the crowd kept thrusting out its small groups, one after the
other, reaching after Sally like different arms, and each time she
answered the spurt, and always slipped away into a greater lead at the
end of it. And then, while the twilight was turning into dark, Andrew
looked back and saw the whole crowd rein in their horses and turn back.
There remained a single figure following him, and that figure was easily
seen, because it was a man on a gray horse. And then Andrew grasped the
plan fully. The posse had played its part; the thing for which the
mountain desert had waited was come at last, and Hal Dozier was going on
to find his man single-handed and pull him down. Twice, before complete
darkness set in, Andrew had been on the verge of turning and going back
to accept the challenge of Hal Dozier. Always two things stopped him.
There was first the fear of the man which he frankly admitted, and more
than that was the feeling that one thing lay before him to be done
before he could meet Dozier and end the long trail. He must see Anne
Withero. She was about to be married and be drawn out of his world and
into a new one. He felt it was more important than life or death to see
her before that transformation took place. They would go East, no doubt.
Two thousand miles, the law and the mountains would fence him away from
her after that.
During the last months he accepted her as he accepted the
stars--something far away from him. Now, by some pretext, by some wile,
he must live to see her once more. After that let Hal Dozier meet him
when he would.
But with this in mind, as soon as the utter dark shut down, he swerved
Sally to the right and worked slowly up through the mountains, heading
due southwest and out of the valley of the Little Silver. He kept at it,
through a district where the mare could not even trot a great deal of
the time, for two or more hours. Then he found a little plateau thick
with good grazing for Sally and with a spring near it. There he camped
for the night, without food, without fire.
And not once during the hours before morning did he close his eyes. When
the first gray touched the sky he was in the saddle again; before the
sun was up he had crossed the Las Casas and was going down the great
shallow basin of the Roydon River. A fine, drizzling rain was falling,
and Sally, tired from her hard work of the day before and the long duels
with the horses of the posse, went even more down-heartedly moody than
usual, shuffling wearily, but recovering herself with her usual catlike
adroitness whenever her footing failed on the steep downslope.
For all her dullness, it was a signal from Sally that saved Andrew. She
jerked up her head and turned; he looked in the same direction and saw a
form like a gray ghost coming over the hills to his left, a dim shape
through the rain. Gloomily Andrew watched Hal Dozier come. Gray Peter
had been fresher than Sally at the end of the run of the day before. He
was fresher now. Andrew could tell that easily by the stretch of his
gallop and the evenness of his pace as he rushed across the slope. He
gave the word to Sally. She tossed up her head in mute rebellion at this
new call for a race, and then broke into a canter whose first few
strides, by way of showing her anger, were as choppy and lifeless as the
stride of a plow horse.
That was the beginning of the famous ride from the Las Casas mountains
to the Roydon range, and all the distance across the Roydon valley. It
started with a five-mile sprint--literally five miles of hot racing in
which each horse did its best. And in that five miles Gray Peter would
most unquestionably have won had not one bit of luck fallen the mare. A
hedge of young evergreen streaked before Sally, and Andrew put her at
the mark; she cleared it like a bird, jumping easily and landing in her
stride. It was not the first time she had jumped with Andrew.
But Gray Peter was not a steeplechaser. He had not been trained to it,
and he refused. His rider had to whirl and go up the line of shrubs
until he found a place to break through. Then he was after Sally again.
But the moment that Andrew saw the marshal had been stopped he did not
use the interim to push the mare and increase her lead. Very wisely he
drew her back to the long, rocking canter which was her natural gait,
and Sally got the breath which Gray Peter had run out of her. She also
regained priceless lost ground, and when the gray came in view of the
quarry again his work was all to do over again. Hal Dozier tried again
in straightaway running. It had been his boast that nothing under the
saddle in the mountain desert could keep away from him in a stretch of
any distance, and he rode Gray Peter desperately to make his boast good.
He failed. If that first stretch had been unbroken--but there his chance
was gone, and, starting the second spurt, Andrew came to realize one
greatly important truth--Sally could not sprint for any distance, but up
to a certain pace she ran easily and without labor. He made it his point
to see that she was never urged beyond that pace. He found another
thing, that she took a hill in far better style than Peter, and she did
far better in the rough, but on the level going he ate up her
handicap swiftly.
With a strength of his own found and a weakness in his pursuer, Andrew
played remorselessly to that weakness with his strength. He sought the
choppy ground as a preference and led the stallion through it wherever
he could; he swung to the right, where there was a stretch of rolling
hills, and once more Gray Peter had a losing space before him.
So they came to the river itself, with Gray Peter comfortably in the
rear, but running well within his strength. Andrew paused in the
shallows to allow Sally one swallow; then he went on. But Dozier did not
pause for even this. It was a grave mistake.
And so the miles wore on. Sally was still running like a swallow for
lightness, but Andrew knew by her breathing that she was giving vital
strength to the effort. He talked to her constantly. He told her how
Gray Peter ran behind them. He encouraged her with pet words. And Sally
seemed to understand, for she flicked one ear back to listen, and then
she pricked them both and kept at her work.
It was a heart-tearing thing to see her run to the point of lather and
then keep on.
They were in low hills, and Gray Peter was losing steadily. They reached
a broad flat, and the stallion gained with terrible insistence. Looking
back, Andrew could see that the marshal had stripped away every vestige
of his pack. He followed that example with a groan. And still Gray
Peter gained.
It was the last great effort for the stallion. Before them rose the
foothills of the Roydon mountains; behind them the Las Casas range was
lost in mist. It seemed that they had been galloping like this for an
infinity of time, and Andrew was numb from the shoulders down. If he
reached those hills Gray Peter was beaten. He knew it; Hal Dozier knew
it; and the two great horses gave all their strength to the last duel
of the race.
The ears of Sally no longer pricked. They lay flat on her neck. The
amazing lift was gone from her gait, and she pounded heavily with the
forelegs. And still she struggled on. He looked back, and Gray Peter
still gained, an inch at a time, and his stride did not seem to have
abated. The one bitter question now was whether Sally would not collapse
under the effort. With every lurch of her feet, Andrew expected to feel
her crumble beneath him. And yet she went on. She was all heart, all
nerve, and running on it. Behind her came Gray Peter, and he also ran
with his head stretched out.
He was within rifle range now. Why did not Dozier fire? Perhaps he had
set his heart on actually running Sally down, not dropping his prey with
a distant shot.
And still they flew across the flat. The hills were close now, and
sometimes, when the drizzling rain lifted, it seemed that the Roydon
mountains were exactly above them, leaning out over him like a shadow.
He called on Sally again and again. He touched her for the first time in
her life with spurs, and she found something in the depths of her heart
and her courage to answer with. She ran again with a ghost of her former
buoyancy, and Gray Peter was held even. Not an inch could he gain after
that. Andrew saw his pursuer raise his quirt and flog. It was useless.
Each horse was running itself out, and no power could get more speed out
of the pounding limbs.
And with his head still turned, Andrew felt a shock and flounder. Sally
had almost fallen. He jerked sharply up on the reins, and she broke into
a staggering trot. Then Andrew saw that they had struck the slope of the
first hill, a long, smooth rise which she would have taken at full speed
in the beginning of the race, but now though she labored bitterly, she
could not raise a gallop. The trot was her best effort.
There was a shrill yelling behind, and Andrew saw Dozier, a hand
brandished above his head. He had seen Sally break down; Gray Peter
would catch her; his horse would win that famous duel of speed and
courage. Rifle? He had forgotten his rifle. He would go in, he would
overhaul Sally, and then finish the chase with a play of revolvers. And
in expectation of that end, Andrew drew his revolver. It hung the length
of his arm; he found that his muscles were numb from the cold and the
cramped position from the elbow down. Shoot? He was as helpless as
though he had no gun at all. He beat his hands together to bring back
the blood. He thrashed his arms against the pommel of the saddle. There
was only a dull pain; it would take long minutes to bring those hands
back to the point of service, and in the meantime Gray Peter galloped
upon him from behind!
Well, he would let Sally do her best. For the last time he called on
her; for the last time she struggled to respond, and Andrew looked back
and grimly watched the stallion sweeping across the last portion of the
flat ground, closer, closer, and then, at the very base of the slope,
Gray Peter tossed up his head, floundered, and went down, hurling his
rider over his head. Andrew, fascinated, let Sally fall into a walk,
while he watched the singular, convulsive struggles of Gray Peter to
gain his feet. Hal Dozier was up again; he ran to his horse, caught his
head, and at the same moment the stallion grew suddenly limp. The weight
of his head dragged the marshal down, and then Andrew saw that Dozier
made no effort to rise again.
He sat with the head of the horse in his lap, his own head buried in his
hands, and Andrew knew then that Gray Peter was dead.