A darkness, like the streaming clouds overhead, seemed to blot out
Slone's sight, and then passed away, leaving it clearer.
Lucy was bending over him, binding a scarf round his shoulder and under
his arm. "Lin! It's nothing!" she was saying, earnestly. "Never touched
a bone!"
Slone sat up. The smoke was clearing away. Little curves of burning
grass were working down along the rim. He put out a hand to grasp Lucy,
remembering in a flash. He pointed to the ledge across the chasm.
"They're--gone!" cried Lucy, with a strange and deep note in her voice.
She shook violently. But she did not look away from Slone.
"Wildfire! The King!" he added, hoarsely.
"Both where they dropped. Oh, I'm afraid to--to look.... And, Lin, I
saw Sarch, Two Face, and Ben and Plume go down there."
She had her back to the chasm where the trail led down, and she pointed
without looking.
Slone got up, a little unsteady on his feet and conscious of a dull
pain.
"Sarch will go straight home, and the others will follow him," said
Lucy. "They got away here where Joel came up the trail. The fire chased
them out of the woods. Sarch will go home. And that'll fetch the
riders."
"We won't need them if only Wildfire and the King--" Slone broke off
and grimly, with a catch in his breath, turned to the horses.
How strange that Slone should run toward the King while Lucy ran to
Wildfire!
Sage King was a beaten, broken horse, but he would live to run another
race.
Lucy was kneeling beside Wildfire, sobbing and crying: "Wildfire!
Wildfire!"
All of Wildfire was white except where he was red, and that red was not
now his glossy, flaming skin. A terrible muscular convulsion as of
internal collapse grew slower and slower. Yet choked, blinded, dying,
killed on his feet, Wildfire heard Lucy's voice.
"Oh, Lin! Oh, Lin!" moaned Lucy.
While they knelt there the violent convulsions changed to slow heaves.
"He run the King down--carryin' weight--with a long lead to overcome!"
Slone muttered, and he put a shaking hand on the horse's wet neck.
"Oh, he beat the King!" cried Lucy. "But you mustn't--you CAN'T tell
Dad!"
"What CAN we tell him?"
"Oh, I know. Old Creech told me what to say!"
A change, both of body and spirit, seemed to pass over the great
stallion.
"WILDFIRE! WILDFIRE!"
Again the rider called to his horse, with a low and piercing cry. But
Wildfire did not hear.
The morning sun glanced brightly over the rippling sage which rolled
away from the Ford like a gray sea.
Bostil sat on his porch, a stricken man. He faced the blue haze of the
north, where days before all that he had loved had vanished. Every day,
from sunrise till sunset, he had been there, waiting and watching. His
riders were grouped near him, silent, awed by his agony, awaiting
orders that never came.
From behind a ridge puffed up a thin cloud of dust. Bostil saw it and
gave a start. Above the sage appeared a bobbing, black object--the head
of a horse. Then the big black body followed.
"Sarch!" exclaimed Bostil.
With spurs clinking the riders ran and trooped behind him.
"More hosses back," said Holley, quietly.
"Thar's Plume!" exclaimed Farlane.
"An' Two Face!" added Van.
"Dusty Ben!" said another.
"RIDERLESS!" finished Bostil.
Then all were intensely quiet, watching the racers come trotting in
single file down the ridge. Sarchedon's shrill neigh, like a
whistle-blast, pealed in from the sage. From, fields and corrals
clamored the answer attended by the clattering of hundreds of hoofs.
Sarchedon and his followers broke from trot to canter--canter to
gallop--and soon were cracking their hard hoofs on the stony court.
Like a swarm of bees the riders swooped down upon the racers, caught
them, and led them up to Bostil.
On Sarchedon's neck showed a dry, dust-caked stain of reddish tinge.
Holley, the old hawk-eyed rider, had precedence in the examination.
"Wal, thet's a bullet-mark, plain as day," said Holley.
"Who shot him?" demanded Bostil.
Holley shook his gray head.
"He smells of smoke," put in Farlane, who had knelt at the black's
legs. "He's been runnin' fire. See thet! Fetlocks all singed!"
All the riders looked, and then with grave, questioning eyes at one
another.
"Reckon thar's been hell!" muttered Holley, darkly.
Some of the riders led the horses away toward the corrals. Bostil
wheeled to face the north again. His brow was lowering; his cheek was
pale and sunken; his jaw was set.
The riders came and went, but Bostil kept his vigil. The hours passed.
Afternoon came and wore on. The sun lost its brightness and burned red.
Again dust-clouds, now like reddened smoke, puffed over the ridge. A
horse carrying a dark, thick figure appeared above the sage.
Bostil leaped up. "Is thet a gray hoss--or am--I blind?" he called,
unsteadily.
The riders dared not answer. They must be sure. They gazed through
narrow slits of eyelids; and the silence grew intense.
Holley shaded the hawk eyes with his hand. "Gray he is--Bostil--gray as
the sage.... AN' SO HELP ME GOD IF HE AIN'T THE KING!"
"Yes, it's the King!" cried the riders, excitedly. "Sure! I reckon! No
mistake about thet! It's the King!"
Bostil shook his huge frame, and he rubbed his eyes as if they had
become dim, and he stared again.
"Who's thet up on him?"
"Slone. I never seen his like on a hoss," replied Holley.
"An' what's--he packin'?" queried Bostil, huskily.
Plain to all keen eyes was the glint of Lucy Bostil's golden hair. But
only Holley had courage to speak.
"It's Lucy! I seen thet long ago."
A strange, fleeting light of joy died out of Bostil's face. The change
once more silenced his riders. They watched the King trotting in from
the sage. His head drooped. He seemed grayer than ever and he limped.
But he was Sage King, splendid as of old, all the more gladdening to
the riders' eyes because he had been lost. He came on, quickening a
little to the clamoring welcome from the corrals.
Holley put out a swift hand. "Bostil--the girl's alive--she's smilin'!"
he called, and the cool voice was strangely different.
The riders waited for Bostil. Slone rode into the courtyard. He was
white and weary, reeling in the saddle. A bloody scarf was bound round
his shoulder. He held Lucy in his arms. She had on his coat. A wan
smile lighted her haggard face.
Bostil, cursing deep, like muttering thunder, strode out. "Lucy! You
ain't bad hurt?" he implored, in a voice no one had ever heard before.
"I'm--all right--Dad," she said, and slipped down into his arms.
He kissed the pale face and held her up like a child, and then,
carrying her to the door of the house, he roared for Aunt Jane.
When he reappeared the crowd of riders scattered from around Slone. But
it seemed that Bostil saw only the King. The horse was caked with dusty
lather, scratched and disheveled, weary and broken, yet he was still
beautiful. He raised his drooping head and reached for his master with
a look as soft and dark and eloquent as a woman's.
No rider there but felt Bostil's passion of doubt and hope. Had the
King been beaten? Bostil's glory and pride were battling with love.
Mighty as that was, it did not at once overcome his fear of defeat.
Slowly the gaze of Bostil moved away from Sage King and roved out to
the sage and back, as if he expected to see another horse. But no other
horse was in sight. At last his hard eyes rested upon the white-faced
Slone.
"Been some--hard ridin'?" he queried, haltingly. All there knew that
had not been the question upon his lips.
"Pretty hard--yes," replied Slone. He was weary, yet tight-lipped,
intense.
"Now--them Creeches?" slowly continued Bostil.
"Dead."
A murmur ran through the listening riders, and they drew closer.
"Both of them?"
"Yes. Joel killed his father, fightin' to get Lucy.... An' I
ran--Wildfire over Joel--smashed him!"
"Wal, I'm sorry for the old man," replied Bostil, gruffly. "I meant to
make up to him.... But thet fool boy! ... An' Slone--you're all bloody."
He stepped forward and pulled the scarf aside. He was curious and
kindly, as if it was beyond him to be otherwise. Yet that dark cold
something, almost sullen clung round him.
"Been bored, eh? Wal, it ain't low, an' thet's good. Who shot you?"
"Cordts."
"CORDTS!" Bostil leaned forward in sudden, fierce eagerness.
"Yes, Cordts.... His outfit run across Creech's trail an' we bunched. I
can't tell now.... But we had--hell! An' Cordts is dead--so's
Hutch--an' that other pard of his.... Bostil, they'll never haunt your
sleep again!"
Slone finished with a strange sternness that seemed almost bitter.
Bostil raised both his huge fists. The blood was bulging his thick
neck. It was another kind of passion that obsessed him. Only some
violent check to his emotion prevented him from embracing Slone. The
huge fists unclenched and the big fingers worked.
"You mean to tell me you did fer Cordts an' Hutch what you did fer
Sears?" he boomed out.
"They're dead--gone, Bostil--honest to God!" replied Slone.
Holley thrust a quivering, brown hand into Bostil's face. "What did I
tell you?" he shouted. "Didn't I say wait?"
Bostil threw away all that deep fury of passion, and there seemed only
a resistless and speechless admiration left. Then ensued a moment of
silence. The riders watched Slone's weary face as it drooped, and
Bostil, as he loomed over him.
"Where's the red stallion?" queried Bostil. That was the question hard
to get out.
Slone raised eyes dark with pain, yet they flashed as he looked
straight up into Bostil's face. "Wildfire's dead!"
"DEAD!" ejaculated Bostil.
Another moment of strained exciting suspense.
"Shot?" he went on.
"No."
"What killed him?"
"The King, sir! ... Killed him on his feet!"
Bostil's heavy jaw bulged and quivered. His hand shook as he laid it on
Sage King's mane--the first touch since the return of his favorite.
"Slone--what--is it?" he said, brokenly, with voice strangely softened.
His face became transfigured.
"Sage King killed Wildfire on his feet.... A grand race, Bostil! ...
But Wildfire's dead--an' here's the King! Ask me no more. I want to
forget."
Bostil put his arm around the young man's shoulder. "Slone, if I don't
know what you feel fer the loss of thet grand hoss, no rider on earth
knows! ... Go in the house. Boys, take him in--all of you--an' look
after him."
Bostil wanted to be alone, to welcome the King, to lead him back to the
home corral, perhaps to hide from all eyes the change and the uplift
that would forever keep him from wronging another man.
The late rains came and like magic, in a few days, the sage grew green
and lustrous and fresh, the gray turning to purple.
Every morning the sun rose white and hot in a blue and cloudless sky.
And then soon the horizon line showed creamy clouds that rose and
spread and darkened. Every afternoon storms hung along the ramparts and
rainbows curved down beautiful and ethereal. The dim blackness of the
storm-clouds was split to the blinding zigzag of lightning, and the
thunder rolled and boomed, like the Colorado in flood.
The wind was fragrant, sage-laden, no longer dry and hot, but cool in
the shade.
Slone and Lucy never rode down so far as the stately monuments, though
these held memories as hauntingly sweet as others were poignantly
bitter. Lucy never rode the King again. But Slone rode him, learned to
love him. And Lucy did not race any more. When Slone tried to stir in
her the old spirit all the response he got was a wistful shake of head
or a laugh that hid the truth or an excuse that the strain on her
ankles from Joel Creech's lasso had never mended. The girl was
unutterably happy, but it was possible that she would never race a
horse again.
She rode Sarchedon, and she liked to trot or lope along beside Slone
while they linked hands and watched the distance. But her glance
shunned the north, that distance which held the wild canyons and the
broken battlements and the long, black, pine-fringed plateau.
"Won't you ever ride with me, out to the old camp, where I used to wait
for you?" asked Slone.
"Some day," she said, softly.
"When?"
"When--when we come back from Durango," she replied, with averted eyes
and scarlet cheek. And Slone was silent, for that planned trip to
Durango, with its wonderful gift to be, made his heart swell.
And so on this rainbow day, with storms all around them, and blue sky
above, they rode only as far as the valley. But from there, before they
turned to go back, the monuments appeared close, and they loomed
grandly with the background of purple bank and creamy cloud and shafts
of golden lightning. They seemed like sentinels--guardians of a great
and beautiful love born under their lofty heights, in the lonely
silence of day, in the star-thrown shadow of night. They were like that
love. And they held Lucy and Slone, calling every day, giving a
nameless and tranquil content, binding them true to love, true to the
sage and the open, true to that wild upland home.