THE BELLS RING
"Galloway!"
It seemed almost as though some great voice had shouted it to him
through the din. Yonder, riding on his spurs, come at this late
moment, was Jim Galloway. The man responsible for all of to-night's
bloodshed, for the disappearance of Florrie, for the death of Billy
Norton.
"Coming, Jim Galloway!"
Did he say it? Or again was it a voice shouting to him, urging him on?
He looked off to the east. Flying forms everywhere with other racing
forms pursuing, firing as they ran. Horses jerking back, rearing,
breaking away from the few men guarding them. Full defeat for Jim
Galloway there. But to the west? Galloway coming on at top speed,
shouting as he came, and, upon the mountain's lower slope the others of
Galloway's men, armed and bloodthirsty. If Galloway came to them,
whipped them with his tongue, stirring them with his magnetism . . .
why, then, the fight was all to be fought over.
Now again Norton, too, was running, bearing down upon the straggling
horses. He caught up the first dragging reins to lay his hand to,
swung up into the saddle, measured swiftly the distance between
Galloway and the men on the mountain . . . and used his spurs.
On came Jim Galloway, his wide, heavy shoulders not to be mistaken in
the rich moonlight, his hat gone, his head up, a rifle across the
saddle in front of him. Norton lost sight of him as he swept down into
the bed of the arroyo, caught sight of him again from the farther side.
Already Galloway was appreciably nearer his men, driving his horse
mercilessly.
"If he comes to his crowd before I can stop him," was Norton's thought,
"he'll put his game across on us yet. I've got to head him off and
take the chances."
Nor were the odds to be overlooked. Galloway was still too far away to
be stopped by a rifle-ball, and Norton, heading him off, would expose
himself not only to Galloway's fire but to that of the men who were
moving to a lower slope to meet their leader. And yet, with fate in
the balance, here was no time for hesitation.
Now Galloway had seen him, had recognized him, perhaps, the thought
coming naturally to him that it would be Roderick Norton who rode to
cut him off. He shifted his rifle so that his right hand was on the
grip, the barrel caught in his left; he had dropped his horse's reins.
Norton was slipping a fresh clip into his gun, his own reins now upon
his horse's neck. And now both men knew that unless a bullet stopped
him Norton would cut across Galloway's path before he could come to his
men.
"At him, Roddy, old boy! We're coming!"
Norton glanced over his shoulder and pressed on. Brocky had missed
him, had seen, had called back a half dozen of his men and was
following. Well, if he dropped, maybe Brocky and the others could get
Jim Galloway. It really began to look as though Galloway had played
out his string.
They were firing from the mountainside now, the bullets thus far flying
wild of their rushing target. Norton shook his head and urged his
horse to fresh endeavor. In a moment he would be fairly between
Galloway and Galloway's last chance. His eye picked out the spot where
he would dismount at that moment, a tumble of big boulders. He would
swing down so that they would be between him and the mountain, so that
nothing but moonlit open space lay between him and Jim Galloway.
While rifles cracked and spat fire and sprayed lead over him and about
him he rode the last fifty yards. He reached the boulders, set his
horse up, threw himself from the saddle, and with his back to the rock,
his face toward Galloway, he lifted his rifle. Galloway, almost at the
same instant, jerked in his own horse. He was so close that Norton
caught his cry of rage.
"Hands up, Galloway!" cried the sheriff. "Hands up or I'll drop you."
But at last Galloway had come out into the open; at last there was no
subterfuge to stand forth at his need; at last, gambler that he was, he
accepted the even break of man to man. As Norton's voice rang out
Galloway fired.
He shot twice before Norton pulled the trigger. Norton shot but the
once. Galloway dropped his rifle, sat rigid a moment, toppled from the
saddle. And his men, seeing him go down, cried out to one another and
drew back into the mountain cañons.
"Funny thing," said Brocky Lane afterward. "Had the picture of a kid
of a girl in his pocket! Must have carted it around for a year. Old
Roddy's bullet tore right square through it."
It was a picture of Florrie Engle, taken years before. As Brocky said:
"Just a kid of a girl." Where he got it nobody knew. But then there
were other things about Jim Galloway which no one knew. Perhaps . . .
Quien sabe!
During the late hours of the night and the following forenoon the thing
was ended. Sheriff Roberts's deputies with a posse in automobiles had
raced southward, intercepting those other cars despatched toward the
border by the Kid and del Rio. Brocky Lane with a score of men had
swept down upon the stolen herds, scattered them, fired fifty shots,
emptied some three or four saddles, and sent the escaping rustlers
flying toward the Mexican line. Singly and in small groups other men,
farmers, cowboys, miners, and the dwellers of small settlements, joined
with Norton's men, giving battle to those of Galloway's crowd who had
drawn back into the fastnesses of Mt. Temple. In the afternoon Norton,
with the aid of a handful of cowboys from Brocky's outfit and from Las
Flores, escorted fifteen anxious-faced prisoners to the county-seat,
where jail capacity was to be taxed. And night had come again, serene
and peaceful with the glory of the moon and stars, when he rode once
more into San Juan, sore and saddle-weary.
At the hotel he learned that Virginia had gone to the Engles. He left
his jaded horse with Ignacio and walked down the street. In front of
the Casa Blanca he stopped a moment, staring musingly at the solid
adobe walls gleaming white in the moonlight. The place was quiet,
deserted. No single light winked at him through door or window. It
seemed to him to be brooding over the passing of Jim Galloway.
He found Florrie and Elmer strolling under the cottonwoods. They had
scant interest in him, little time to bestow upon a mere mortal.
Florrie could only cry ecstatically that Black Bill was a hero! He,
all alone, had terrorized the Mexican woman guarding her, had saved
her, had brought her back. And Elmer could only look pleased and
stammer and whisper to Fluff to be still.
Virginia had heard his voice, the voice she had been listening for
throughout so many long hours, and met him before he had come to the
door.
"Oh, thank God, thank God!" she cried softly. "But . . . you are hurt?"
He forgot his wound as both arms closed about her. From somewhere at
the rear of the house he heard Mrs. Engle's voice crying eagerly; "It's
Roddy!" She was hurrying to greet him. What he had to say must be
said briefly.
"My work is done," he said quickly. "I have put in my resignation this
afternoon. They can get a new sheriff. I am going to be a rancher, my
dear. And, Virginia . . ."
He was whispering to her, his lips close to her hair. And Virginia,
though her face was suddenly hot with the flush mounting to her brow,
gave him steadily for answer:
"Whenever you wish, Rod Norton!"
So it was only twenty-four hours later that Ignacio Chavez stood in the
old Mission garden and made his bells talk, just the three upon the
western arch, the Little One, La Golondrina, and Ignacio Chavez, the
golden-throated trio that tinkled to the touch of his cunning hand and
seemed to laugh and sing and proclaim the gladdest of glad tidings.
Then Ignacio drew his enrapt gaze earthward from the full moon and made
out a man and a girl riding out into the night, riding toward the Ranch
of the Flowers. And he made the bells laugh again.
"And to-morrow," vowed Ignacio solemnly, "not later than to-morrow or
the day thereafter, you shall have your reward, _amigos_. You have
told the world of heavy doings; you have rung for Jim Galloway dead;
you have made the music for the wedding of _el_ Señor Nortone. And it
shall be I who will make a little roof like a house over you. You will
see!"