Ninety miles of ground, at least, had been covered by the black
stallion, since he left Rickett that morning, yet when he galloped
across the plain in full sight of Wilsonville there were plenty of
witnesses who vowed that Satan ran like a colt frolicking over a
pasture. Mark Retherton knew better, and the posse to a man felt the
end was near. They changed saddles in a savage silence and went down the
street out of town with a roar of racing hoofs.
And Barry too, as he watched them whip around the corner of the last
house and streak across the fields, knew that the end of the ride was
near. Strength, wind and nerve were gone from Satan; his hoofs pounded
the ground with the stamp of a plowhorse; his breath came in wheezes
with a rattle toward the end; the tail no longer fluttered out straight
behind. Yet when the master leaned and called he found something in his
great heart with which to answer. A ghost of his old buoyancy came in
his stride, the drooping head rose, one ear quivered up, and he ran
against the challenge of those fresh ponies from Wilsonville. There were
men who doubted it when the tale was told, but Mark Retherton swore to
the truth of it.
Even then that desperate effort was failing. Not all the generous will
in the heart of the stallion could give his legs the speed they needed;
and he fell back by inches, by feet, by yards, toward the posse. They
disdained their guns now, and kept them in the cases; for the game was
theirs.
And then they noted an odd activity in the fugitive, who had slipped to
one side and was fumbling at his cinches. They could not understand for
a time, but presently the saddle came loose, the cinches flipped out,
and the whole apparatus crashed to the ground. Nor was this all. The
rider leaned forward and his hands worked on the head of his mount until
the hackamore also came free and was tossed aside. To that thing fifteen
good men and true swore the next day with strange oaths, and told how a
man rode for his life on a horse that wore neither saddle nor bridle but
ran obediently to voice and hand.
Every ounce counted, and there were other ounces to be spared. He was
leaning again, to this side and then to that, and presently the posse
rushed past the discarded riding-boots.
There lay the rifle in its case on the saddle far behind. And with the
rifle remained all the fugitive's chances of fighting at long range.
Now, following, came the heavy cartridge belt and the revolver with it.
The very sombrero was torn from his head and thrown away.
His horse was failing visibly; not even this lightening could keep it
away from the posse long; and yet the man threw away his sole chance of
safety. And the fifteen pursuers cursed solemnly as they saw the truth.
He would run his horse to death and then die with it empty handed rather
than let either of them fall a captive.
Unburdened by saddle or gun or trapping, the stallion gave himself in
the last effort. There ahead lay safety, if they could shake off this
last relay of the posse, and for a time he pulled away until Retherton
grew anxious, and once more the bullets went questing around the
fugitive. But it was a dying effort. They gained; they drew away; and
then they were only holding the posse even, and then once more, they
fell back gradually toward the pursuit. It was the end, and Barry sat
bolt erect and looked around him; that would be the last of him and the
last scene he should see.
There came the posse, distant but running closer. With every stride
Satan staggered; with every stride his head drooped, and all the lilt
of his running was gone. Ten minutes, five minutes more and the fifteen
would be around him. He looked to the river which thundered there at his
side.
It was the very swiftest portion of all the Asper between Tucker Creek
and Caswell City. Even at that moment, a few hundred yards away, a tall
tree which had been undermined, fell into the stream and dashed the
spray high; yet even that fall was silent in the general roar of the
river. Checked by the body and the branches of the tree for an instant
before it should be torn away from the bank and shot down stream, the
waters boiled and left a comparatively smooth, swift sliding current
beyond the obstruction; and it gave to Barry a chance or a ghost of a
chance:
The central portion of the river bed was chopped with sharp rocks which
tore the stream into white rages of foam; but beyond these rocks, a
little past the middle, the tree like a dam smoothed out the current; it
was still swift but not torn with swirls or cross-currents, and in that
triangle of comparatively still water of which the base was the fallen
tree, the apex lay on a sand bar, jutting a few yards from the bank. And
the forlorn hope of Barry was to swing the stallion a little distance
away from the banks, run him with the last of his ebbing strength
straight for the bank, and try to clear the rocky portion of the river
bed with a long leap that might, by the grace of God, shoot him into
the comparatively protected current. Even then it would be a game only
a tithe won, for the chances were ten to one that before they could
struggle close to the shore, the currents would suck them out toward the
center. They would never reach that shelving bit of sand, but the sharp
rocks of the stream would tear them a moment later like teeth. Yet the
dimmest chance was a good chance now.
He called Satan away from his course, and at the change of direction
the stallion staggered, but went on, turned at another call, and headed
straight for the stream. He was blind with running; he was numbed by the
long horror of that effort, no doubt, but there was enough strength
left in him to understand the master's mind. He tossed his head high, he
flaunted out his tail, and sped with a ghost of his old sweeping gallop
toward the bank.
“Bart!” shouted the master, and waved his arm.
And the wolf saw too. He seemed to cringe for a moment, and then, like
some old leader of a pack who knows he is about to die and defies his
death, he darted for the river and flung himself through the air.
An instant later Satan reared on the bank and shot into the air. Below
him the teeth of the rocks seemed to lift up in hunger, and the white
foam jumped to take him. The crest of the arc of his jump was passed; he
shot lower and grazing the last of the stones he plunged out of sight
in the swift water beyond. There were two falls, not one, for even while
the black was in the air Barry slipped from his back and struck the
water clear of Satan.
They came up again struggling in the last effort toward the shore. The
impetus of their leap had washed them well in toward the bank, but the
currents dragged them out again toward the center of the stream where
the rocks waited. Down river they went, and Black Bart alone had a ghost
of a chance for success. His leap had been farther and he skimmed the
surface when he struck so that by dint of fierce swimming he hugged
close to the shore, and then his claws bedded in the sand-bank.
As for Barry, the waters caught him and sent him spinning over and over,
like a log, whipping down stream, while the heavier body of Satan was
struggling whole yards above. There was no chance for the master to
reach the sand-bank, and even if he reached it he could not cling; but
the wolf-dog knew many things about water. In the times of famine long
years before the days of the master there had been ways of catching
fish.
He edged forward until the water foamed about his shoulders. Down came
Dan, his arms tumbling as he whirled, and on the sleeve of one of those
arms the teeth of Bart closed. The cloth was stout, and yet it ripped as
if it were rotten veiling, and the tug nearly swept Bart from his place.
Still, he clung; his teeth shifted their hold with the speed of light
and closed over the arm of the master itself, slipped, sank deeper, drew
blood, and held. Barry swung around and a moment later stood with his
feet buried firmly in the bank.
He had not a moment to spare, for Satan, only his eyes and his nose
showing, rushed down the current, making his last fight. Barry thrust
his feet deeper in the sand, leaned, buried both hands in the mane of
the stallion. It was a far fiercer tug-of-war this time, for the ample
body of the horse gave the water a greater surface to grapple on, yet
the strength of the man sufficed. His back bowed; his shoulders ached
with the strain; and then the forefeet of Satan pawed the sand, and
all three staggered up the shelving bank, reeled among the trees, and
collapsed in safety.
So great was the roar of the water that they heard neither shouts nor
the reports of the guns, but for several minutes the bullets of the
posse combed the shrubbery as high as the breast of a man.