Pressing his horse with his knees, Kern started down the trail at a
slow canter. Sinclair followed the retiring figure, nodding with
admiration at the skill with which the sheriff kept his mount under
control, merely by power of voice. Presently the latter turned a corner
of the trail and was out of sight.
"But--I knew--I knew!" exclaimed John Gaspar. "Only, why did you let
him go on into town?" The cold glance of Sinclair rested on his
companion. "What would you have done?"
"Tied him up and left him here."
"I think you would--to die in the sun!" He swung up into his saddle.
"Now, Gaspar, we've started on what's like to prove the last trail for
both of us, understand? By night we'll both be outlawed. They'll have a
price on us, and long before night, Kern will be after us. For the
first time in your soft-hearted life you've got to work, and you've got
to fight."
"I'll do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
"Bah! Save your talk. Talk's dirt cheap."
"I only ask one thing. Why have you done it?"
"Because, you fool, I killed Quade!"
13
From the first there was no thought in the sheriff's mind of riding
straight into Woodville, trussed and helpless as he was. Woodville
respected him, and the whole district was proud of its sheriff. He knew
that five minutes of laughter can blast the finest reputation that was
ever built by a lifetime of hard labor. He knew the very faces of the
men who would never let the story die, of how the sheriff came into
town, not only without his prisoner, but tied hand and foot, helpless
in the saddle.
Without his prisoner!
Never before in his twenty years as sheriff had a criminal escaped from
his hands. Many a time they had tried, and on those occasions he had
brought back a dead body for the hand of the law.
This time he had ample excuse. Any man in the world might admit that he
was helpless when such a fellow as Riley Sinclair took him by surprise.
He knew Sinclair well by reputation, and he respected all that he had
heard.
No matter for that. The fact remained that his unbroken string of
successes was interrupted. Perhaps Woodville would explain his failure
away. No doubt some of the men knew of Sinclair and would not wonder.
They would stand up doughtily for the prowess of their sheriff. Yet the
fact held that he had failed. It was a moral defeat more than anything
else.
His mind was made up to remain in the mountains until he starved, or
until he had removed those shameful ropes--his own rope! At that
thought he writhed again. But here an arroyo opening in the ragged wall
of a cliff caught his eye. He turned his horse into it and continued on
his way until he saw a projecting rock with a ragged edge, left where a
great fragment had recently fallen away.
Here he found it strangely awkward and even perilous to dismount
without his hands to balance his weight, as he shifted out of the
stirrups. In spite of his care, he stumbled over a loose rock as he
struck the ground and rolled flat on his back. He got up, grinding his
teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken
rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock
edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it gave at
the first friction.
Beads of moisture started out on the sheriff's forehead. Hastily he
started on down the arroyo and found another rock, with an edge not
nearly so favorable in appearance, but this time it was granite. He
leaned his back against it and rubbed with a short shoulder motion
until his arms ached, but it was a happy labor. He felt the rock edge
taking hold of the ropes, fraying the strands to weakness, and then
eating into them. It was very slow work!
The sun drifted up to noon, and still he was leaning against that rock,
working patiently, with his head near to bursting, and perspiration,
which he could not wipe away, running down to blind him. Finally, when
his brain was beginning to reel with the heat, and his shoulders ached
to numbness, the last strand parted. The sheriff dropped down to the
ground to rest.
Presently he drew out his jackknife and methodically cut the remaining
bonds. It came to him suddenly, as he stood up, that someone might have
seen this singular performance and carried the tale away for future
laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the
saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of
that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a
bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and
run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added
power that would make such a pursuit rash beyond words.
A phrase which he had coined for the gossips of Woodville, came back
into his mind. He was no longer as young as he once was, and even at
his prime he shrewdly doubted his ability to cope with Riley Sinclair.
With the weight of Gaspar thrown in, the thing became an impossibility.
Gaspar might be a weakling, but a man who was capable of murder was
always dangerous.
To have been thwarted once was shame enough, but he dared not risk two
failures with one man. He must have help in plenty from Woodville, and,
fate willing, he would one day have the pleasure of looking down into
the dead face of Sinclair; one day have the unspeakable joy of seeing
the slender form of Gaspar dangling from the end of a rope.
His mind was filled with the wicked pleasure of these pictures until he
came suddenly upon Woodville. He drew his horse back to a dogtrot to
enter the town.
It was a short street that led through Woodville, but, short though it
was, the news that something was wrong with the sheriff reached the
heart of the town before he did. Men were already pouring out on the
veranda of the hotel.
"Where is he, sheriff?" was the greeting.
Never before had that question been asked. He switched to one side in
his saddle and made the speech that startled the mind of Woodville for
many a day.
"Boys, I've been double-crossed. Have any of you heard tell of Riley
Sinclair?"
He waited apparently calm. Inwardly he was breathless with excitement,
for according to the size of Riley's reputation as a formidable man
would be the size of his disgrace. There was a brief pause. Old Shaw
filled the gap, and he filled it to the complete satisfaction of the
sheriff.
"Young Hopkins was figured for the hardest man up in Montana way," he
said. "That was till Riley Sinclair beat him. What about Sinclair?"
"It was him that double-crossed me," said the sheriff, vastly relieved.
"He come like a friend, stuck me up on the trail when I wasn't lookin'
for no trouble, and he got away with Gaspar."