DE SPAIN RIDES ALONE
He had ridden the trail but a short time when it led him in a wide
angle backward and around toward Calabasas, and he found, presently,
that the men he was riding after were apparently heading for the stage
barns. In the north the rising curtain had darkened. Toward Sleepy Cat
the landscape was already obliterated. In the south the sun shone, but
the air had grown suddenly cold, and in the sharp drop de Spain
realized what was coming. His first thought was of the southern
stages, which must be warned, and as he galloped up to the big barn,
with this thought in mind he saw, standing in the doorway, Bull Page.
De Spain regarded him with astonishment. "How did you get here?" was
his sharp question.
Page grinned. "Got what I was after, and c'm' back sooner'n I
expected. Half-way over to the Gap, I met Duke and the young gal on
horseback, headed for Calabasas. They pulled up. I pulled up. Old Duke
looked kind o' ga'nted, and it seemed like Nan was in a considerable
hurry to get to Sleepy Cat with him, and he couldn't stand the
saddle. Anyway, they was heading for Calabasas to get a rig from
McAlpin. I knowed McAlpin would never give old Duke a rig, not if he
was a-dyin' in the saddle."
"They've got your rig!" cried de Spain.
"The gal asked me if I'd mind accommodatin' 'em," explained Bull
deprecatingly, "to save time."
"They headed north!" exclaimed de Spain. The light from the
fast-changing sky fell copper-colored across his horse and figure.
McAlpin, followed by a hostler, appeared at the barn door.
Bull nodded to de Spain. "Said they wanted to get there quick. She
fig'erd on savin' a few miles by strikin' the hill trail in. So I
takes their horses and lets on I was headin' in for the Gap. When they
got out of sight, I turned 'round----"
Even as he spoke, the swift-rolling curtain of mist overhead blotted
the sun out of the sky.
De Spain sprang from his saddle with a ringing order to McAlpin. "Get
up a fresh saddle-horse!"
"A horse!" cried the startled barn boss, whirling on the hostler. "The
strongest legs in the stable, and don't lose a second! Lady Jane; up
with her!" he yelled, bellowing his orders into the echoing barn with
his hands to his mouth. "Up with her for Mr. de Spain in a second!
Marmon! Becker! Lanzon! What in hell are you all doing?" he roared,
rushing back with a fusillade of oaths. "Look alive, everybody!"
"Coming!" yelled one voice after another from the depths of the
distant stalls.
De Spain ran into the office. Page caught his horse, stripped the
rifle from its holster, and hurriedly began uncinching. Hostlers
running through the barn called shrilly back and forth, and de Spain
springing up the stairs to his room provided what he wanted for his
hurried flight. When he dashed down with coats on his arm the hoofs of
Lady Jane were clattering down the long gangway. A stable-boy slid
from her back on one side as Bull Page threw the saddle across her
from the other; hostlers caught at the cinches, while others hurriedly
rubbed the legs of the quivering mare. De Spain, his hand on McAlpin's
shoulder, was giving his parting injunctions, and the barn boss, head
cocked down, and eyes cast furtively on the scattering snowflakes
outside, was listening with an attention that recorded indelibly every
uttered syllable.
Once only, he interrupted: "Henry, you're ridin' out into this thing
alone--don't do it."
"I can't help it," snapped de Spain impatiently,
"It's a man killer."
"I can't help it."
"Bob Scott, if he w's here, 'ud never let you do it. I'll ride wi' ye
myself, Henry. I worked for your father----"
"You're too old a man, Jim----"
"Henry----"
"Don't talk to me! Do as I tell you!" thundered de Spain.
McAlpin bowed his head.
"Ready!" yelled Page, buckling the rifle holster in place. Still
talking, and with McAlpin glued to his elbow, de Spain vaulted into
the saddle, caught the lines from Bull's hands, and steadied the Lady
as she sidestepped nervously--McAlpin following close and dodging the
dancing hoofs as he looked earnestly up to catch the last word. De
Spain touched the horse with the lines. She leaped through the doorway
and he raised a backward hand to those behind. Running outside the
door, they yelled a chorus of cries after the swift-moving horseman
and, clustered in an excited group, watched the Lady with a dozen
great strides round the Calabasas trail and disappear with her rider
into the whirling snow.
She fell at once into an easy reaching step, and de Spain, busy with
his reflections, hardly gave thought to what she was doing, and little
more to what was going on about him.
No moving figure reflects the impassive more than a horseman of the
mountains, on a long ride. Though never so swift-borne, the man,
looking neither to the right nor to the left, moving evenly and
statue-like against the sky, a part of the wiry beast under him,
presents the very picture of indifference to the world around him. The
great swift wind spreading over the desert emptied on it snow-laden
puffs that whirled and wrapped a cloud of flakes about horse and rider
in the symbol of a shroud. De Spain gave no heed to these skirmishing
eddies, but he knew what was behind them, and for the wind, he only
wished it might keep the snow in the air till he caught sight of Nan.
The even reach of the horse brought him to the point where Nan had
changed to the stage wagon. Without a break in her long stride, Lady
Jane took the hint of her swerving rider, put her nose into the wind,
and headed north. De Spain, alive to the difficulties of his venture,
set his hat lower and bent forward to follow the wagon along the sand.
With the first of the white flurries passed, he found himself in a
snowless pocket, as it were, of the advancing storm. He hoped for
nothing from the prospect ahead; but every moment of respite from the
blinding whirl was a gain, and with his eyes close on the trail that
had carried Nan into danger, he urged the Lady on.
When the snow again closed down about him he calculated from the
roughness of the country that he should be within a mile of the road
that Nan was trying to reach, from the Gap to Sleepy Cat. But the
broken ground straight ahead would prevent her from driving directly
to it. He knew she must hold to the right, and her curving track, now
becoming difficult to trail, confirmed his conclusion.
A fresh drive of the wind buffeted him as he turned directly north.
Only at intervals could he see any trace of the wagon wheels. The
driving snow compelled him more than once to dismount and search for
the trail. Each time he lost it the effort to regain it was more
prolonged. At times he was compelled to ride the desert in wide
circles to find the tracks, and this cost time when minutes might mean
life. But as long as he could he clung to the struggle to track her
exactly. He saw almost where the storm had struck the two wayfarers.
Neither, he knew, was insensible to its dangers. What amazed him was
that a man like Duke Morgan should be out in it. He found a spot where
they had halted and, with a start that checked the beating of his
heart, his eyes fell on her footprint not yet obliterated, beside the
wagon track.
The sight of it was an electric shock. Throwing himself from his
horse, he knelt over it in the storm, oblivious for an instant of
everything but that this tracery meant her presence, where he now
bent, hardly half an hour before. He swung, after a moment's keen
scrutiny, into his saddle, with fresh resolve. Pressed by the rising
fury of the wind, the wayfarers had become from this point, de Spain
saw too plainly, hardly more than fugitives. Good ground to the left,
where their hope of safety lay, had been overlooked. Their tracks
wandered on the open desert like those who, losing courage, lose their
course in the confusion and fear of the impending peril.
And with this increasing uncertainty in their direction vanished de
Spain's last hopes of tracking them. The wind swept the desert now as
a hurricane sweeps the open sea, snatching the fallen snow from the
face of the earth as the sea-gale, flattening the face of the waters,
rips the foam from the frantic waves to drive it in wild, scudding
fragments across them.
De Spain, urging his horse forward, unbuckled his rifle holster, threw
away the scabbard, and holding the weapon up in one hand, fired shot
after shot at measured intervals to attract the attention of the two
he sought. He exhausted his rifle ammunition without eliciting any
answer. The wind drove with a roar against which even a rifle report
could hardly carry, and the snow swept down the Sinks in a mad blast.
Flakes torn by the fury of the gale were stiffened by the bitter wind
into powdered ice that stung horse and rider. Casting away the
useless carbine, and pressing his horse to the limit of her strength
and endurance, the unyielding pursuer rode in great coiling circles
into the storm, to cut in, if possible, ahead of its victims, firing
shot upon shot from his revolver, and putting his ear intently against
the wind for the faint hope of an answer.
Suddenly the Lady stumbled and, as he cruelly reined her, slid
helpless and scrambling along the face of a flat rock. De Spain,
leaping from her back, steadied her trembling and looked underfoot.
The mare had struck the rock of the upper lava bed. Drawing his
revolver, he fired signal shots from where he stood. It could not be
far, he knew, from the junction of the two great desert trails--the
Calabasas road and the Gap road. He felt sure Nan could not have got
much north of this, for he had ridden in desperation to get abreast of
or beyond her, and if she were south, where, he asked, in the name of
God, could she be?
He climbed again into the saddle--the cold was gripping his
limbs--and, watching the rocky landmarks narrowly, tried to circle the
dead waste of the half-buried flow. With chilled, awkward fingers he
filled the revolver again and rode on, discharging it every minute,
and listening--hoping against hope for an answer. It was when he had
almost completed, as well as he could compute, the wide circuit he had
set out on, that a faint shot answered his continuing signals.
With the sound of that shot and those that followed it his courage all
came back. But he had yet to trace through the confusion of the wind
and the blinding snow the direction of the answering reports.
Hither and thither he rode, this way and that, testing out the
location of the slowly repeated shots, and signalling at intervals in
return. Slowly and doggedly he kept on, shooting, listening, wheeling,
and advancing until, as he raised his revolver to fire it again, a cry
close at hand came out of the storm. It was a woman's voice borne on
the wind. Riding swiftly to the left, a horse's outline revealed
itself at moments in the driving snow ahead.
De Spain cried out, and from behind the furious curtain heard his
name, loudly called. He pushed his stumbling horse on. The dim outline
of a second horse, the background of a wagon, a storm-beaten man--all
this passed his eyes unheeded. They were bent on a girlish figure
running toward him as he slid stiffly from the saddle. The next
instant Nan was in his arms.