THE END OF THE TRAIL
The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly
saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep sides of
the arroyo, to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom,
foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend
in the arroyo, where the angry water flung itself against the ragged
bulwark of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman
appeared bending low in the saddle for better protection against
the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank,
opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and
jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked
about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down
the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could
delay his pursuers for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired
horse, he would have more than an even chance.
But they had gained more than he knew. Suddenly above him on the top of
the steep bluff across the torrent a man loomed up against the clouds,
peered intently into the arroyo, and then waved his sombrero to an
unseen companion. A puff of smoke flashed from his shoulder and streaked
away, the report of the shot lost in the gale. The fugitive's horse
reared and plunged into the deep water and with its rider was swept
rapidly towards the bend, the way they had come.
“That makes the fourth time I've missed that coyote!” angrily exclaimed
Hopalong as Red Connors joined him.
The other quickly raised his rifle and fired; and the horse, spilling
its rider out of the saddle, floated away tail first. The fugitive,
gripping his rifle, bobbed and whirled at the whim of the greedy water
as shots struck near him. Making a desperate effort, he staggered up the
bank and fell exhausted behind a boulder.
“Well, the coyote is afoot, anyhow,” said Red, with great satisfaction.
“Yes; but how are we going to get to him?” asked Hopalong. “We can't get
the cayuses down here, an' we can't swim _that_ water without them. An'
if we could, he'd pot us easy.”
“There's a way out of it somewhere,” Red replied, disappearing over the
edge of the bluff to gamble with Fate.
“Hey! Come back here, you chump!” cried Hopalong, running forward.
“He'll get you, shore!”
“That's a chance I've got to take if I get him,” was the reply.
A puff of smoke sailed from behind the boulder on the other bank and
Hopalong, kneeling for steadier aim, fired and then followed his friend.
Red was downstream casting at a rock across the torrent but the wind
toyed with the heavy, water-soaked _reata_ as though it were a string.
As Hopalong reached his side a piece of driftwood ducked under the water
and an angry humming sound died away downstream. As the report reached
their ears a jet of water spurted up into Red's face and he stepped back
involuntarily.
“He's so shaky,” Hopalong remarked, looking back at the wreath of smoke
above the boulder. “I reckon I must have hit him harder than I thought
in Harlan's. Gee! He's wild as blazes!” he yelled as a bullet hummed
high above his head and struck sharply against the rock wall.
“Yes,” Red replied, coiling the rope. “I was trying to rope that rock
over there. If I could anchor to that, the current would push us over
quick. But it's too far with this wind blowing.”
“We can't do nothing here 'cept get plugged. He'll be getting steadier
as he rests from his fight with the water,” Hopalong remarked, and added
quickly, “Say, remember that meadow back there a ways? We can make her
from there, all right.”
“Yo're right; that's what we've got to do. He's sending 'em nearer every
shot--Gee! I could 'most feel the wind of that one. An' blamed if it
ain't stopped raining. Come on.”
They clambered up the slippery, muddy bank to where they had left their
horses, and cantered back over their trail. Minute after minute passed
before the cautious skulker among the rocks across the stream could
believe in his good fortune. When he at last decided that he was alone
again he left his shelter and started away, with slowly weakening
stride, over cleanly washed rock where he left no trail.
It was late in the afternoon before the two irate punchers appeared
upon the scene, and their comments, as they hunted slowly over the hard
ground, were numerous and bitter. Deciding that it was hopeless in that
vicinity, they began casting in great circles on the chance of crossing
the trail further back from the river. But they had little faith in
their success. As Red remarked, snorting like a horse in his disgust,
“I'll bet four dollars an' a match he's swum down the river clean to
hell just to have the laugh on us.” Red had long since given it up as
a bad job, though continuing to search, when a shout from the distant
Hopalong sent him forward on a run.
“Hey, Red!” cried Hopalong, pointing ahead of them. “Look there! Ain't
that a house?”
“Naw; course not! It's a--it's a ship!” Red snorted sarcastically. “What
did you think it might be?”
“G'wan!” retorted his companion. “It's a mission.”
“Ah, g'wan yoreself! What's a mission doing up here?” Red snapped.
“What do you think they do? What do they do anywhere?” hotly rejoined
Hopalong, thinking about Johnny. “There! See the cross?”
“Shore enough!”
“An' there's tracks at last--mighty wobbly, but tracks just the same.
Them rocks couldn't go on forever. Red, I'll bet he's cashed in by this
time.”
“Cashed nothing! Them fellers don't.”
“Well, if he's in that joint we might as well go back home. We won't get
him, not nohow,” declared Hopalong.
“Huh! You wait an' see!” replied Red, pugnaciously.
“Reckon you never run up agin a mission real hard,” Hopalong responded,
his memory harking back to the time he had disagreed with a convent,
and they both meant about the same to him as far as winning out was
concerned.
“Think I'm a fool kid?” snapped Red, aggressively.
“Well, you ain't no _kid_.”
“You let _me_ do the talking; _I'll_ get him.”
“All right; an' I'll do the laughing,” snickered Hopalong, at the door.
“Sic 'em, Red!”
The other boldly stepped into a small vestibule, Hopalong close at his
heels. Red hitched his holster and walked heavily into a room at his
left. With the exception of a bench, a table, and a small altar, the
room was devoid of furnishings, and the effect of these was lost in the
dim light from the narrow windows. The peculiar, not unpleasant odor of
burning incense and the dim light awakened a latent reverence and awe
in Hopalong, and he sneaked off his sombrero, an inexplicable feeling
of guilt stealing over him. There were three doors in the walls, deeply
shrouded in the dusk of the room, and it was very hard to watch all
three at once.
Red was peering into the dark corners, his hand on the butt of his Colt,
and hardly knew what he was looking for. “This joint must 'a' looked
plumb good to that coyote, all right. He had a hell of a lot of luck,
but he won't keep it for long, damn him!” he remarked.
“Quit cussing!” tersely ordered Hopalong. “An' for God's sake, throw out
that damned cigarette! Ain't you got no manners?”
Red listened intently and then grinned. “Hear that? They're playing
dominoes in there--come on!”
“Aw, you chump! 'Dominee' means 'mother' in Latin, which is what they
speaks.”
“How do you know?”
“Hanged if I can tell--I've heard it somewhere, that's all.”
“Well, I don't care what it means. This is a frame-up so that coyote
can get away. I'll bet they gave him a cayuse an' started him off
while we've been losing time in here. I'm going inside an' ask some
questions.”
Before he could put his plan into execution, Hopalong nudged him and he
turned to see his friend staring at one of the doors. There had been no
sound, but he would swear that a monk stood gravely regarding them,
and he rubbed his eyes. He stepped back suspiciously and then started
forward again.
“Look here, stranger,” he remarked, with quiet emphasis, “we're after
that cow-lifter, an' we mean to get him. Savvy?”
The monk did not appear to hear him, so he tried another tack. “_Habla
Espanola?_” he asked, experimentally.
“You have ridden far?” replied the monk in perfect English.
“All the way from the Bend,” Red replied, relieved. “We're after Jerry
Brown. He tried to kill Johnny, an' near made good. An' I reckon we've
treed him, judging from the tracks.”
“And if you capture him?”
“He won't have no more use for no side pocket shooting.”
“I see; you will kill him.”
“Shore's it's wet outside.”
“I'm afraid you are doomed to disappointment.”
“Ya-as?” asked Red with a rising inflection.
“You will not want him now,” replied the monk.
Red laughed sarcastically and Hopalong smiled.
“There ain't a-going to be no argument about it. Trot him out,” ordered
Red, grimly.
The monk turned to Hopalong. “Do you, too, want him?”
Hopalong nodded.
“My friends, he is safe from your punishment.”
Red wheeled instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments,
smiling triumphantly. “There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none
going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to
rummage around an' poke him out for ourselves: which is it?”
“You are right--he is here, and he is not here.”
“We're waiting,” Red replied, grinning.
“When I tell you that you will not want him, do you still insist on
seeing him?”
“We'll see him, an' we'll want him, too.”
As the rain poured down again the sound of approaching horses was heard,
and Hopalong ran to the door in time to see Buck Peters swing off his
mount and step forward to enter the building. Hopalong stopped him and
briefly outlined the situation, begging him to keep the men outside. The
monk met his return with a grateful smile and, stepping forward, opened
the chapel door, saying, “Follow me.”
The unpretentious chapel was small and nearly dark, for the usual
dimness was increased by the lowering clouds outside. The deep, narrow
window openings, fitted with stained glass, ran almost to the rough-hewn
rafters supporting the steep-pitched roof, upon which the heavy rain
beat again with a sound like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain
and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the
wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the
stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirge-like
chorus.
At the farther end of the room two figures knelt and moved before the
white altar, the soft light of flickering candles playing fitfully upon
them and glinting from the altar ornaments, while before a rough coffin,
which rested upon two pedestals, stood a third, whose rich, sonorous
Latin filled the chapel with impressive sadness. “Give eternal rest
to them, O Lord,”--the words seeming to become a part of the room. The
ineffably sad, haunting melody of the mass whispered back from the room
between the assaults of the enraged wind, while from the altar came the
responses in a low, Gregorian chant, and through it all the clinking of
the censer chains added intermittent notes. Aloft streamed the vapor
of the incense, wavering with the air currents, now lost in the deep
twilight of the sanctuary, and now faintly revealed by the glow of the
candles, perfuming the air with its aromatic odor.
As the last deep-toned words died away the celebrant moved slowly around
the coffin, swinging the censer over it and then, sprinkling the body
and making the sign of the cross above its head, solemnly withdrew.
From the shadows along the side walls other figures silently emerged and
grouped around the coffin. Raising it they turned it slowly around and
carried it down the dim aisle in measured tread, moving silently as
ghosts.
“He is with God, Who will punish according to his sins,” said a low
voice, and Hopalong started, for he had forgotten the presence of the
guide. “God be with you, and may you die as he died--repentant and in
peace.”
Buck chafed impatiently before the chapel door leading to a small,
well-kept graveyard, wondering what it was that kept quiet for so long
a time his two most assertive men, when he had momentarily expected to
hear more or less turmoil and confusion.
_C-r-e-a-k!_ He glanced up, gun in hand and raised as the door swung
slowly open. His hand dropped suddenly and he took a short step forward;
six black-robed figures shouldering a long box stepped slowly past
him, and his nostrils were assailed by the pungent odor of the incense.
Behind them came his fighting punchers, humble, awed, reverent, their
sombreros in their hands, and their heads bowed.
“What in blazes!” exclaimed Buck, wonder and surprise struggling for the
mastery as the others cantered up.
“He's cashed,” Red replied, putting on his sombrero and nodding toward
the procession.
Buck turned like a flash and spoke sharply: “Skinny! Lanky! Follow that
glory-outfit, an' see what's in that box!”
Billy Williams grinned at Red. “Yo're shore pious, Red.”
“Shut up!” snapped Red, anger glinting in his eyes, and Billy subsided.
Lanky and Skinny soon returned from accompanying the procession.
“I had to look twice to be shore it was him. His face was plumb happy,
like a baby. But he's gone, all right,” Lanky reported.
“Deader'n hell,” remarked Skinny, looking around curiously. “This here
is some shack, ain't it?” he finished.
“All right--he knowed how he'd finish when he began. Now for that dear
Mr. Harlan,” Buck replied, vaulting into the saddle. He turned and
looked at Hopalong, and his wonder grew. “Hey, _you_! Yes, _you_! Come
out of that an' put on yore lid! Straddle leather--we can't stay here
all night.”
Hopalong started, looked at his sombrero and silently obeyed. As they
rode down the trail and around a corner he turned in his saddle and
looked back; and then rode on, buried in thought.
Billy, grinning, turned and playfully punched him in the ribs. “Getting
glory, Hoppy?”
Hopalong raised his head and looked him steadily in the eyes; and Billy,
losing his curiosity and the grin at the same instant, looked ahead,
whistling softly.