A STRANGE DIVERSION.
It was the wonderful sagacity of the little mare which intervened at
this crisis in the fate of her rider.
She was no more than fairly stretched away on a dead run from the new
peril when she shot into an arroya or depression in the prairie. Such
a depression suggests the dry bed of a stream through which the water
may not have flowed for years. It is sometimes a few feet only in
width, and again it may be a number of rods. The rich, alluvial soil
often causes a luxuriant growth of grass, cottonwood or bush, which
affords the best of grazing and refuge for any one when hard pressed
by the enemy.
The arroya into which Queenie plunged had gently sloping sides, and
was perhaps fifty feet wide. The bottom was covered not only with
grass, but with the thin undergrowth to which allusion has been made,
and which was so frail in character that it offered no impediment to
the passage of a running horse.
Sterry's expectation was that his mare would shoot across the
depression and up the other bank with the least possible delay; but of
her own accord, and without suggestion from him, she turned abruptly
to the left and dropped to a walk.
He was astounded, and was on the point of speaking impatiently to her
as he jerked the bridle-rein, when the occurrence already referred to
took place, and made the action of the animal seem like an inspiration
or instinct approaching the height of reason.
At the moment she made the sharp turn to the left, another horseman
galloped up the opposite slope and off upon the prairie. By an amazing
coincidence it happened that he was in the arroya, and in the act of
crossing in the same direction with the fugitive, when the furious
plunge of the mare sent his own bounding up the farther bank.
Sterry caught the situation like a flash. Before Queenie had gone more
than a half-dozen rods he brought her to a standstill. They resembled
an equestrian statue, so motionless were they for a full minute.
The converging parties of pursuers could plainly see the second
horseman speeding away from the other side, and inevitably concluded
that he was the inspector whom they wanted. They were after him
hot-footed on the instant.
This man was Ira Inman, a well-known rustler, and the intimate friend
of Larch Cadmus. When he saw himself pursued by a half-dozen of
his friends he reined up, and calmly but wonderingly awaited their
arrival, which took place within the next few seconds.
"Up with your hands! Quick about it, too! You're the man we want!"
"Wal," replied the leader, surveying them with a grin, and paying no
heed to their fierce commands, "now that you've got me, what are you
going to do with me?"
If there ever were a set of dumbfounded men, they were the rustlers
who closed about the leader and recognized him in the moonlight. The
remarks that followed his identification were as ludicrous as they
were vigourous.
The majority believed he had played a trick on them in pretending to
be Mont Sterry, whom all were so anxious to bring down; but there
were one or two who were not satisfied. They knew the voice of the
inspector, which in no way resembled the gruff tones of Inman. Then,
their leader was not given to practical jokes.
"What set you to hunting me so hard?" he asked, after the first flurry
was over.
"We're looking for Mont Sterry."
"Wal, what made you take me for him? Do I look like him in the
moonlight?"
"But you said you were, and fired at us," explained one.
"Fired at you? Said I was that chap? What in the mischief are you
driving at?"
One, who suspected the truth, now interposed.
"We did meet Sterry and hailed him; you must have heard our guns; he
dashed into the arroya; we saw you gallop out on t'other side, and
took you for him."
"Ah, I understand it all now," replied Inman; "I had ridden down there
on my way back from a little scout, when a horseman dashed into the
slope behind me like a thunderbolt. My horse was so scared that he
went up the other side on the jump, and before I could turn around to
find out what it all meant, you lunkheads came down on me with the
request to oblige you by throwing up my hands, which I will see you
hanged before I'll do."
"But where is he? What has become of him?" asked several, looking
around, as thought they expected to see the young man ride forward and
surrender himself.
"Wal, calling to mind the kind of horse he rides, I should say he is
about a half-mile off by this time, laughing to find out how cleverly
he has fooled you chaps."
"It looks as if you was in the same boat, Inman," retorted one of the
chagrined party.
"I wasn't chasing Sterry."
"He seemed to be chasing you, for you came out of the arroya ahead of
him."
"If he was chasing me," replied the leader, who felt that the laugh
was on his companions, "he would have followed me out; but I don't see
anything of him;" and he, too, stared around, as though not sure the
man would not do the improbable thing named.
"It was a blamed cute trick, any way you look at it," remarked one of
the party. "It was queer that you should have been there, Inman, just
at the minute needed. But for that, we would have had him, sure."
"Wal, you can make up your mind that we have him as good as catched
already. He can't get out of the country without some of the boys
running against him, and the first rustler that catches sight of Mr.
Sterry will drop him in his tracks."
"If he gets the chance to do it," was the wise comment of another.
"That fellow is quick on the shoot and isn't afraid of any of us."
"He ain't the first one that's made that mistake, only to find himself
rounded up at last. Larch Cadmus' idea of 24 hours' notice don't go
down with this crowd, eh?"
And the crowd unanimously responded in the negative.