THE CHALLENGE OF THE BRUTE
There had been yellow, mellow weather for weeks on weeks, but this day
dawned hard and cold. Some projected rancor of the winter was in the
air. Westward the peaks were blanketed with thick gray clouds, while
eastward a sullen redness showed where the sun strove to rise on an
angry world. The wind was the kind that scrapes raw the nerves,
buffeting man and beast with cross-currents and unexpected blasts,
howling and shrieking around chimneys and gables, covering everything
with dust and sand.
Haig awoke to hear the wind tearing at the shutters and the roof, the
pines on the hillside thundering like surf, the hills reverberating
with the maddest trumpetings. He lay a moment listening; his pulse
quickened, at the sound of all that tumult; and he leaped from his bed
calling loudly for Slim Jim. It was a day for battle. The very
elements were up and at it, as if all nature had enlisted in the
struggle between man and brute.
For all his eagerness, he ate his breakfast leisurely, resolved to
make no such error as he had made before. There should be no mad haste
and no anger; no working on an empty stomach, on nerves drawn taut.
Bacon and eggs and buckwheat cakes, with coffee and a single pipe,
occupied an hour or more; and then, feeling fit for anything, he set
out for the corrals.
He did not scruple this time to take every precaution known to the
experts of the corrals. Bill was mounted on the wisest horse in the
stables, with a lariat ready against the event of Sunnysides trying
the fence again. Then Haig directed Farrish, Curly, and Pete to rope
and saddle the outlaw, saving himself for the supreme struggle. But to
their astonishment there was none of the difficulties in the
preliminaries that they encountered on the previous occasion; only two
or three vicious movements, no more.
"Foxy, ain't you?" said Farrish to the outlaw, when the saddle was on.
"Savin' yourself, are you, you yellow devil?"
The horse was led as before into the larger corral. He stepped nimbly,
obediently, as if resistance were the farthest thing from his
thoughts, even when Haig, his arch-enemy, walked up to him, grasped
the bridle, and looked steadily into his eyes. For a moment all stood
still, as the challenge passed between man and brute. Then Haig tested
the cinches of the saddle, looked carefully around him, and disposed
the men with a final word to each.
"Now then! Off with it!"
Farrish removed the last rope, and then only the bridle rein in Haig's
hand, and the fence yonder, stoutly repaired since the last battle,
remained between Sunnysides and the sandhills of the San Luis. True,
only a fence and a guard had held him all these weeks of his
captivity, but that fence had been built up, on his arrival, two
planks higher than the one in which he now found himself again, and
from which he had all but escaped at the first opportunity.
Haig put his feet cautiously into the stirrup, and sprang into the
saddle. He was prepared for a repetition of the trick that had almost
cost him his life, and ready to swing himself out of the saddle if
Sunnysides should go over backward again. But the horse was indeed
"foxy"; one would have said that he knew his man, and would waste no
time or energy on manoeuvers that his enemy had discounted. For some
seconds he stood quite motionless, while Haig settled firmly in his
seat, and gripped the bridle rein expectantly. At length the horse
lifted and turned his head, and looked, as it appeared, toward the
western mountains, half hidden in the gray swirl of clouds.
"Yes, over there's the San Luis," muttered Haig. "But it's a long way,
and you're not going."
Farrish grinned. But Pete stood like a wooden Indian, so still and
intent was he, with his black eyes fixed on the outlaw. Curly loosened
the coils of the lariat in his hands. In a corner of the corral Bill,
mounted and watchful, held his rope ready for a throw.
Still Sunnysides did not move. But his tail swished with the slow and
menacing movement of a tiger's, and there was just a quiver of muscles
under his golden hide.
"Watch out!" called Pete.
And then it came. The horse bounded into the air, and came down
stiff-legged, with a jolt that Haig felt in every bone. Then he leaped
sideways half a dozen feet, and Haig was flung far over, hanging
perilously in the saddle. With almost one motion the horse was in the
air again, to come down with the same frightful, jarring shock.
Instantly thereupon he lunged forward, stopped short, ducked his head,
and narrowly missed hurling Haig like a stone from a catapult.
All these tactics were repeated with variations; and then, of a
sudden, as if he thought Haig had forgotten his experience by this
time, he reared, and with the same lightning swiftness as before, went
over backward on the ground. But Haig was too quick for him. He swung
himself to one side, released his right foot from the stirrup, and
rolled away from beneath the horse as they came down with a crash. At
the same instant Pete and Curly rushed in, and the horse leaped to his
feet only to be brought down again with two ropes on his legs.
Haig, dusty but uninjured, was on his feet in a jiffy, and leaning
over the thwarted outlaw.
"You didn't really think you could do it again, did you?" he said.
"But he's a hellyun, though, ain't he!" ejaculated Curly, bracing
himself on his rope.
The horse was allowed to rise; Haig climbed cautiously into the saddle
once more; and the same tense silence as the first ensued, while
Sunnysides waited, as if for inspiration.
Then it was on as before, but with accentuated fury. The horse, for
his opening demonstration, bucked with his back curved like a steel
bow. Haig was almost propelled into the air, but hung on desperately;
and as the outlaw came down on stiffened legs Haig jabbed the spurs
viciously into his flanks. For Sunnysides had been too calculating in
his measures; it was desirable to stir him up, to anger him, to
torment him until he should wear himself out with his furious
struggles.
The spurs did it. In an instant Sunnysides was a demon. All that he
had done was like the antics of a colt compared with what followed. No
eye in the corral could follow and record all his movements. He was in
every part of the enclosure at once, it seemed. There were instants,
too, when he appeared to have disassociated himself from the earth,
and to have taken to the air as his element. And then the earth rang
again with the clatter of his hoofs; his four legs became a hundred,
and then were four again, pounding like piledrivers, like steel
drills. He flung himself against the fence until it swayed and
creaked, and Haig's legs were bruised by the violent contact. Clouds
of dust rose and hung above the enclosure, and settled on the outlaw's
wet shoulders, on Haig's sweating face, in his eyes and nostrils, and
in his throat until he was fairly choking. But though half-blinded,
dizzy, and aching in all his body, Haig hung on, and dug the spurs
ceaselessly into the horse's flanks.
"God! He's got him!" cried Farrish.
"Your game's up!" yelled Curly tauntingly, dancing with joy in his
corner of the corral.
But the game was not up. Curly's words were barely out of his mouth
when something went wrong with Haig. Just what happened none could be
quite sure of, then or afterward; but in the midst of Sunnysides'
plungings, there came a windmill kind of movement, rather like the
whirling of a dervish, out of which the horse lunged swiftly forward,
and halted violently, with his head down, and his forelegs stiff
before him. It was apparently an elaboration of one of the commonest
tricks of all; and if Haig could have stuck to the saddle then he
probably would have won. But he was thrown. He went sprawling over the
horse's lowered head, and struck the ground on his head and shoulders,
and lay still.
What followed was more marvelous even than the unseating of Haig with
the shout of victory already rising to his lips. There came a
snort that ended in a scream; and then a flash of yellow through the
dust. Bill Craven, on his horse at one side of the corral, saw it
coming straight toward him, and tried to whirl his noose. Too late.
The outlaw was upon him; his own pony, rearing, was caught unbalanced;
and Bill himself instinctively leaned backward in the saddle.
There was a terrific impact; the pony was struck squarely on the left
fore-quarter; and horse and rider went down together in a heap against
the fence. Then over them went the outlaw, trampling them as he
leaped and clambered, taking the top plank with him as he landed
outside the corral on his head and knees. In an instant he was up; in
another, or the same instant, he was off, with his head down, and
belly to earth, with the speed of a race-horse and the frenzy of a
wild thing set free.
Haig was only slightly stunned by the fall. He heard, though he did
not see, the escape of Sunnysides; and for one black moment all in the
present was blotted out. But that was only the dizziness, and the
reeling pain in his head; and there was the sky filled with
gray-black, contending clouds; and Pete was leaning over him.
"Hurt?" asked the Indian.
"No."
He reached up one hand, and Pete helped him to his feet. Swaying a
little, he looked around the corral. Farrish was on the outside,
gazing down the road where Sunnysides was now almost out of sight, a
mere yellow spot in a cloud of dust. Curly was jerking Craven's horse
to its feet.
"What's the matter there?" called Haig.
"Bill's hurt!" answered Curly.
With Pete at his side, not yet assured that all was well with him,
Haig walked unsteadily to where Bill lay against the fence.
"What is it, Craven?" he asked.
"Leg broke. My horse fell on me," Bill answered weakly. He had,
besides, a gash in the left side of his head, from which the blood
flowed down his face.
"Into the barn with him!" Haig ordered quietly.
They placed him on a cot, and Pete gave him a long pull at his
ever-ready flask.
"I'm sorry, Bill!" said Haig, looking down at him.
"It's my own fault," replied Craven. "An' it serves me damned right
for lettin' him get by me."
Haig smiled grimly, then turned to the other men with orders. He was
ominously quiet; even the dullest of them, the slow-witted Curly, saw
and wondered at the unusual calm that showed on his face and in his
accents.
"Now then, business!" he said, with swift decision. "You'll take the
sorrels, Curly, and drive to Tellurium for the doctor. Don't be afraid
to drive them; I'll not be on your back for that. Pete, go to the
cottage, and bring my gun. Jim knows where it is. Farrish--where's
Farrish?"
"Here!"
He came leading two ponies from their stalls.
"What are you doing, Farrish?"
"I supposed we'd better find out where he's gone, and see if--"
"There's no doubt where he's headed for, is there?" Haig interrupted.
"And who's going to stop him? No, saddle Trixy!"
"But you're not going alone?" said Farrish.
"Yes."
"But--"
"Bill's knocked out. Curly's off as soon as he can start for
Tellurium. That leaves you and Pete to look after the ranch. I may be
gone some time."
"But you can't rope him alone!" protested Farrish.
"I don't expect to. There isn't a horse in the Park that could
overtake him. He'll make for the San Luis, of course. I'll get help
there. Now then, Farrish, you're in charge of the ranch. If anything
should happen to me, Jim knows where all my papers are. That's all."
Farrish hastened to saddle Trixy, coiling a rope at the saddle horn,
and strapping a slicker behind the saddle. At this moment came Pete
from the cottage, bringing the revolver and cartridge belt, which Haig
buckled on while Farrish led Trixy out in front of the stable.
There was a word or two more to Farrish, about the cattle and the hay,
and Haig swung himself into the saddle.
"Wait!" cried Pete, running out of the stable.
He handed a flask of whisky to Haig, who took it, smiling, and thrust
it into a pocket of his coat.
"Sure cure for everything, eh, Pete?"
But he reached down, and clasped Pete's hand.
"You will be cold, maybe," said the Indian simply.
"All right, men!" said Haig. "You'll take good care of Craven, of
course. And you'll use your best judgment about everything, Farrish.
I'm not coming back without Sunnysides."
He put spurs to the little bay mare, and dashed away. Pete and Farrish
stood watching him until he had turned the point of the ridge.
"Hell!" said Farrish.
In the cottage door stood a figure in blue silks, intently gazing
after the disappearing horseman.
"He catchum, allee light!" murmured Slim Jim.