WRANGLE’S RACE RUN
The plan eventually decided upon by the lovers was for Venters to go to
the village, secure a horse and some kind of a disguise for Bess, or at
least less striking apparel than her present garb, and to return
post-haste to the valley. Meanwhile, she would add to their store of
gold. Then they would strike the long and perilous trail to ride out of
Utah. In the event of his inability to fetch back a horse for her, they
intended to make the giant sorrel carry double. The gold, a little
food, saddle blankets, and Venters’s guns were to compose the light
outfit with which they would make the start.
“I love this beautiful place,” said Bess. “It’s hard to think of
leaving it.”
“Hard! Well, I should think so,” replied Venters. “Maybe—in years—” But
he did not complete in words his thought that might be possible to
return after many years of absence and change.
Once again Bess bade Venters farewell under the shadow of Balancing
Rock, and this time it was with whispered hope and tenderness and
passionate trust. Long after he had left her, all down through the
outlet to the Pass, the clinging clasp of her arms, the sweetness of
her lips, and the sense of a new and exquisite birth of character in
her remained hauntingly and thrillingly in his mind. The girl who had
sadly called herself nameless and nothing had been marvelously
transformed in the moment of his avowal of love. It was something to
think over, something to warm his heart, but for the present it had
absolutely to be forgotten so that all his mind could be addressed to
the trip so fraught with danger.
He carried only his rifle, revolver, and a small quantity of bread and
meat, and thus lightly burdened, he made swift progress down the slope
and out into the valley. Darkness was coming on, and he welcomed it.
Stars were blinking when he reached his old hiding-place in the split
of cañon wall, and by their aid he slipped through the dense thickets
to the grassy enclosure. Wrangle stood in the center of it with his
head up, and he appeared black and of gigantic proportions in the dim
light. Venters whistled softly, began a slow approach, and then called.
The horse snorted and, plunging away with dull, heavy sound of hoofs,
he disappeared in the gloom. “Wilder than ever!” muttered Venters. He
followed the sorrel into the narrowing split between the walls, and
presently had to desist because he could not see a foot in advance. As
he went back toward the open Wrangle jumped out of an ebony shadow of
cliff and like a thunderbolt shot huge and black past him down into the
starlit glade. Deciding that all attempts to catch Wrangle at night
would be useless, Venters repaired to the shelving rock where he had
hidden saddle and blanket, and there went to sleep.
The first peep of day found him stirring, and as soon as it was light
enough to distinguish objects, he took his lasso off his saddle and
went out to rope the sorrel. He espied Wrangle at the lower end of the
cove and approached him in a perfectly natural manner. When he got near
enough, Wrangle evidently recognized him, but was too wild to stand. He
ran up the glade and on into the narrow lane between the walls. This
favored Venters’s speedy capture of the horse, so, coiling his noose
ready to throw, he hurried on. Wrangle let Venters get to within a
hundred feet and then he broke. But as he plunged by, rapidly getting
into his stride, Venters made a perfect throw with the rope. He had
time to brace himself for the shock; nevertheless, Wrangle threw him
and dragged him several yards before halting.
“You wild devil,” said Venters, as he slowly pulled Wrangle up. “Don’t
you know me? Come now—old fellow—so—so—”
Wrangle yielded to the lasso and then to Venters’s strong hand. He was
as straggly and wild-looking as a horse left to roam free in the sage.
He dropped his long ears and stood readily to be saddled and bridled.
But he was exceedingly sensitive, and quivered at every touch and
sound. Venters led him to the thicket, and, bending the close saplings
to let him squeeze through, at length reached the open. Sharp survey in
each direction assured him of the usual lonely nature of the cañon,
then he was in the saddle, riding south.
Wrangle’s long, swinging canter was a wonderful ground-gainer. His
stride was almost twice that of an ordinary horse; and his endurance
was equally remarkable. Venters pulled him in occasionally, and walked
him up the stretches of rising ground and along the soft washes.
Wrangle had never yet shown any indication of distress while Venters
rode him. Nevertheless, there was now reason to save the horse,
therefore Venters did not resort to the hurry that had characterized
his former trip. He camped at the last water in the Pass. What distance
that was to Cottonwoods he did not know; he calculated, however, that
it was in the neighborhood of fifty miles.
Early in the morning he proceeded on his way, and about the middle of
the forenoon reached the constricted gap that marked the southerly end
of the Pass, and through which led the trail up to the sage-level. He
spied out Lassiter’s tracks in the dust, but no others, and
dismounting, he straightened out Wrangle’s bridle and began to lead him
up the trail. The short climb, more severe on beast than on man,
necessitated a rest on the level above, and during this he scanned the
wide purple reaches of slope.
Wrangle whistled his pleasure at the smell of the sage. Remounting,
Venters headed up the white trail with the fragrant wind in his face.
He had proceeded for perhaps a couple of miles when Wrangle stopped
with a suddenness that threw Venters heavily against the pommel.
“What’s wrong, old boy?” called Venters, looking down for a loose shoe
or a snake or a foot lamed by a picked-up stone. Unrewarded, he raised
himself from his scrutiny. Wrangle stood stiff head high, with his long
ears erect. Thus guided, Venters swiftly gazed ahead to make out a
dust-clouded, dark group of horsemen riding down the slope. If they had
seen him, it apparently made no difference in their speed or direction.
“Wonder who they are!” exclaimed Venters. He was not disposed to run.
His cool mood tightened under grip of excitement as he reflected that,
whoever the approaching riders were, they could not be friends. He
slipped out of the saddle and led Wrangle behind the tallest
sage-brush. It might serve to conceal them until the riders were close
enough for him to see who they were; after that he would be indifferent
to how soon they discovered him.
After looking to his rifle and ascertaining that it was in working
order, he watched, and as he watched, slowly the force of a bitter
fierceness, long dormant, gathered ready to flame into life. If those
riders were not rustlers he had forgotten how rustlers looked and rode.
On they came, a small group, so compact and dark that he could not tell
their number. How unusual that their horses did not see Wrangle! But
such failure, Venters decided, was owing to the speed with which they
were traveling. They moved at a swift canter affected more by rustlers
than by riders. Venters grew concerned over the possibility that these
horsemen would actually ride down on him before he had a chance to tell
what to expect. When they were within three hundred yards he
deliberately led Wrangle out into the trail.
Then he heard shouts, and the hard scrape of sliding hoofs, and saw
horses rear and plunge back with up-flung heads and flying manes.
Several little white puffs of smoke appeared sharply against the black
background of riders and horses, and shots rang out. Bullets struck far
in front of Venters, and whipped up the dust and then hummed low into
the sage. The range was great for revolvers, but whether the shots were
meant to kill or merely to check advance, they were enough to fire that
waiting ferocity in Venters. Slipping his arm through the bridle, so
that Wrangle could not get away, Venters lifted his rifle and pulled
the trigger twice.
He saw the first horseman lean sideways and fall. He saw another lurch
in his saddle and heard a cry of pain. Then Wrangle, plunging in
fright, lifted Venters and nearly threw him. He jerked the horse down
with a powerful hand and leaped into the saddle. Wrangle plunged again,
dragging his bridle, that Venters had not had time to throw in place.
Bending over with a swift movement, he secured it and dropped the loop
over the pommel. Then, with grinding teeth, he looked to see what the
issue would be.
The band had scattered so as not to afford such a broad mark for
bullets. The riders faced Venters, some with red-belching guns. He
heard a sharper report, and just as Wrangle plunged again he caught the
whizz of a leaden missile that would have hit him but for Wrangle’s
sudden jump. A swift, hot wave, turning cold, passed over Venters.
Deliberately he picked out the one rider with a carbine, and killed
him. Wrangle snorted shrilly and bolted into the sage. Venters let him
run a few rods, then with iron arm checked him.
[Illustration: just as Wrangle plunged again he caught the whizz of a
leaden missile]
Five riders, surely rustlers, were left. One leaped out of the saddle
to secure his fallen comrade’s carbine. A shot from Venters, which
missed the man but sent the dust flying over him made him run back to
his horse. Then they separated. The crippled rider went one way; the
one frustrated in his attempt to get the carbine rode another, Venters
thought he made out a third rider, carrying a strange-appearing bundle
and disappearing in the sage. But in the rapidity of action and vision
he could not discern what it was. Two riders with three horses swung
out to the right. Afraid of the long rifle—a burdensome weapon seldom
carried by rustlers or riders—they had been put to rout.
Suddenly Venters discovered that one of the two men last noted was
riding Jane Withersteen’s horse Bells—the beautiful bay racer she had
given to Lassiter. Venters uttered a savage outcry. Then the small,
wiry, frog-like shape of the second rider, and the ease and grace of
his seat in the saddle—things so strikingly incongruous—grew more and
more familiar in Venters’s sight.
“_Jerry Card!_” cried Venters.
It was indeed Tull’s right-hand man. Such a white hot wrath inflamed
Venters that he fought himself to see with clearer gaze.
“It’s Jerry Card!” he exclaimed, instantly. “_And he’s riding Black
Star and leading Night!_”
The long-kindling, stormy fire in Venters’s heart burst into flame. He
spurred Wrangle, and as the horse lengthened his stride Venters slipped
cartridges into the magazine of his rifle till it was once again full.
Card and his companion were now half a mile or more in advance, riding
easily down the slope. Venters marked the smooth gait, and understood
it when Wrangle galloped out of the sage into the broad cattle trail,
down which Venters had once tracked Jane Withersteen’s red herd. This
hard-packed trail, from years of use, was as clean and smooth as a
road. Venters saw Jerry Card look back over his shoulder, the other
rider did likewise. Then the three racers lengthened their stride to
the point where the swinging canter was ready to break into a gallop.
“Wrangle, the race’s on,” said Venters, grimly. “We’ll canter with them
and gallop with them and run with them. We’ll let them set the pace.”
Venters knew he bestrode the strongest, swiftest, most tireless horse
ever ridden by any rider across the Utah uplands. Recalling Jane
Withersteen’s devoted assurance that Night could run neck and neck with
Wrangle, and Black Star could show his heels to him, Venters wished
that Jane were there to see the race to recover her blacks and in the
unqualified superiority of the giant sorrel. Then Venters found himself
thankful that she was absent, for he meant that race to end in Jerry
Card’s death. The first flush, the raging of Venters’s wrath, passed,
to leave him in sullen, almost cold possession of his will. It was a
deadly mood, utterly foreign to his nature, engendered, fostered, and
released by the wild passions of wild men in a wild country. The
strength in him then—the thing rife in him that was not hate, but
something as remorseless—might have been the fiery fruition of a whole
lifetime of vengeful quest. Nothing could have stopped him.
Venters thought out the race shrewdly. The rider on Bells would
probably drop behind and take to the sage. What he did was of little
moment to Venters. To stop Jerry Card, his evil hidden career as well
as his present flight, and then to catch the blacks—that was all that
concerned Venters. The cattle trail wound for miles and miles down the
slope. Venters saw with a rider’s keen vision ten, fifteen, twenty
miles of clear purple sage. There were no on-coming riders or rustlers
to aid Card. His only chance to escape lay in abandoning the stolen
horses and creeping away in the sage to hide. In ten miles Wrangle
could run Black Star and Night off their feet, and in fifteen he could
kill them outright. So Venters held the sorrel in, letting Card make
the running. It was a long race that would save the blacks.
In a few miles of that swinging canter Wrangle had crept appreciably
closer to the three horses. Jerry Card turned again, and when he saw
how the sorrel had gained, he put Black Star to a gallop. Night and
Bells, on either side of him, swept into his stride.
Venters loosened the rein on Wrangle and let him break into a gallop.
The sorrel saw the horses ahead and wanted to run. But Venters
restrained him. And in the gallop he gained more than in the canter.
Bells was fast in that gait, but Black Star and Night had been trained
to run. Slowly Wrangle closed the gap down to a quarter of a mile, and
crept closer and closer.
Jerry Card wheeled once more. Venters distinctly saw the red flash of
his red face. This time he looked long. Venters laughed. He knew what
passed in Card’s mind. The rider was trying to make out what horse it
happened to be that thus gained on Jane Withersteen’s peerless racers.
Wrangle had so long been away from the village that not improbably
Jerry had forgotten. Besides, whatever Jerry’s qualifications for his
fame as the greatest rider of the sage, certain it was that his best
point was not far-sightedness. He had not recognized Wrangle. After
what must have been a searching gaze he got his comrade to face about.
This action gave Venters amusement. It spoke so surely of the facts
that neither Card nor the rustler actually knew their danger. Yet if
they kept to the trail—and the last thing such men would do would be to
leave it—they were both doomed.
This comrade of Card’s whirled far around in his saddle, and he even
shaded his eyes from the sun. He, too, looked long. Then, all at once,
he faced ahead again and, bending lower in the saddle, began to fling
his right arm up and down. That flinging Venters knew to be the lashing
of Bells. Jerry also became active. And the three racers lengthened out
into a run.
“Now, Wrangle!” cried Venters. “Run, you big devil! Run!”
Venters laid the reins on Wrangle’s neck and dropped the loop over the
pommel. The sorrel needed no guiding on that smooth trail. He was
surer-footed in a run than at any other fast gait, and his running gave
the impression of something devilish. He might now have been actuated
by Venters’s spirit; undoubtedly his savage running fitted the mood of
his rider. Venters bent forward swinging with the horse, and gripped
his rifle. His eye measured the distance between him and Jerry Card.
In less than two miles of running Bells began to drop behind the
blacks, and Wrangle began to overhaul him. Venters anticipated that the
rustler would soon take to the sage. Yet he did not. Not improbably he
reasoned that the powerful sorrel could more easily overtake Bells in
the heavier going outside of the trail. Soon only a few hundred yards
lay between Bells and Wrangle. Turning in his saddle, the rustler began
to shoot, and the bullets beat up little whiffs of dust. Venters raised
his rifle, ready to take snap shots, and waited for favorable
opportunity when Bells was out of line with the forward horses. Venters
had it in him to kill these men as if they were skunk-bitten coyotes,
but also he had restraint enough to keep from shooting one of Jane’s
beloved Arabians.
No great distance was covered, however, before Bells swerved to the
left, out of line with Black Star and Night. Then Venters, aiming high
and waiting for the pause between Wrangle’s great strides, began to
take snap shots at the rustler. The fleeing rider presented a broad
target for a rifle, but he was moving swiftly forward and bobbing up
and down. Moreover, shooting from Wrangle’s back was shooting from a
thunderbolt. And added to that was the danger of a low-placed bullet
taking effect on Bells. Yet, despite these considerations, making the
shot exceedingly difficult, Venters’s confidence, like his
implacability, saw a speedy and fatal termination of that rustler’s
race. On the sixth shot the rustler threw up his arms and took a flying
tumble off his horse. He rolled over and over, hunched himself to a
half-erect position, fell, and then dragged himself into the sage. As
Venters went thundering by he peered keenly into the sage, but caught
no sign of the man. Bells ran a few hundred yards, slowed up, and had
stopped when Wrangle passed him.
Again Venters began slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine of his
rifle, and his hand was so sure and steady that he did not drop a
single cartridge. With the eye of a rider and the judgment of a
marksman he once more measured the distance between him and Jerry Card.
Wrangle had gained, bringing him into rifle range. Venters was hard put
to it now not to shoot, but thought it better to withhold his fire.
Jerry, who, in anticipation of a running fusillade, had huddled himself
into a little twisted ball on Black Star’s neck, now surmising that
this pursuer would make sure of not wounding one of the blacks, rose to
his natural seat in the saddle.
In his mind perhaps, as certainly as in Venters’s, this moment was the
beginning of the real race.
Venters leaned forward to put his hand on Wrangle’s neck, then backward
to put it on his flank. Under the shaggy, dusty hair trembled and
vibrated and rippled a wonderful muscular activity. But Wrangle’s flesh
was still cold. What a cold-blooded brute thought Venters, and felt in
him a love for the horse he had never given to any other. It would not
have been humanly possible for any rider, even though clutched by hate
or revenge or a passion to save a loved one or fear of his own life, to
be astride the sorrel to swing with his swing, to see his magnificent
stride and hear the rapid thunder of his hoofs, to ride him in that
race and not glory in the ride.
So, with his passion to kill still keen and unabated, Venters lived out
that ride, and drank a rider’s sage-sweet cup of wildness to the dregs.
When Wrangle’s long mane, lashing in the wind, stung Venters in the
cheek, the sting added a beat to his flying pulse. He bent a downward
glance to try to see Wrangle’s actual stride, and saw only twinkling,
darting streaks and the white rush of the trail. He watched the
sorrel’s savage head, pointed level, his mouth still closed and dry,
but his nostrils distended as if he were snorting unseen fire. Wrangle
was the horse for a race with death. Upon each side Venters saw the
sage merged into a sailing, colorless wall. In front sloped the lay of
ground with its purple breadth split by the white trail. The wind,
blowing with heavy, steady blast into his face, sickened him with
enduring, sweet odor, and filled his ears with a hollow, rushing roar.
Then for the hundredth time he measured the width of space separating
him from Jerry Card. Wrangle had ceased to gain. The blacks were
proving their fleetness. Venters watched Jerry Card, admiring the
little rider’s horsemanship. He had the incomparable seat of the upland
rider, born in the saddle. It struck Venters that Card had changed his
position, or the position of the horses. Presently Venters remembered
positively that Jerry had been leading Night on the right-hand side of
the trail. The racer was now on the side to the left. No—it was Black
Star. But, Venters argued in amaze, Jerry had been mounted on Black
Star. Another clearer, keener gaze assured Venters that Black Star was
really riderless. Night now carried Jerry Card.
“He’s changed from one to the other!” ejaculated Venters, realizing the
astounding feat with unstinted admiration. “Changed at full speed!
Jerry Card, that’s what you’ve done unless I’m drunk on the smell of
sage. But I’ve got to see the trick before I believe it.”
Thenceforth, while Wrangle sped on, Venters glued his eyes to the
little rider. Jerry Card rode as only he could ride. Of all the daring
horsemen of the uplands, Jerry was the one rider fitted to bring out
the greatness of the blacks in that long race. He had them on a dead
run, but not yet at the last strained and killing pace. From time to
time he glanced backward, as a wise general in retreat calculating his
chances and the power and speed of pursuers, and the moment for the
last desperate burst. No doubt, Card, with his life at stake, gloried
in that race, perhaps more wildly than Venters. For he had been born to
the sage and the saddle and the wild. He was more than half horse. Not
until the last call—the sudden up-flashing instinct of
self-preservation—would he lose his skill and judgment and nerve and
the spirit of that race. Venters seemed to read Jerry’s mind. That
little crime-stained rider was actually thinking of his horses,
husbanding their speed, handling them with knowledge of years, glorying
in their beautiful, swift, racing stride, and wanting them to win the
race when his own life hung suspended in quivering balance. Again Jerry
whirled in his saddle and the sun flashed red on his face. Turning, he
drew Black Star closer and closer toward Night, till they ran side by
side, as one horse. Then Card raised himself in the saddle, slipped out
of the stirrups, and, somehow twisting himself, leaped upon Black Star.
He did not even lose the swing of the horse. Like a leech he was there
in the other saddle, and as the horses separated, his right foot, that
had been apparently doubled under him, shot down to catch the stirrup.
The grace and dexterity and daring of that rider’s act won something
more than admiration from Venters.
For the distance of a mile Jerry rode Black Star and then changed back
to Night. But all Jerry’s skill and the running of the blacks could
avail little more against the sorrel.
Venters peered far ahead, studying the lay of the land. Straightaway
for five miles the trail stretched, and then it disappeared in hummocky
ground. To the right, some few rods, Venters saw a break in the sage,
and this was the rim of Deception Pass. Across the dark cleft gleamed
the red of the opposite wall. Venters imagined that the trail went down
into the Pass somewhere north of those ridges. And he realized that he
must and would overtake Jerry Card in this straight course of five
miles.
Cruelly he struck his spurs into Wrangle’s flanks. A light touch of
spur was sufficient to make Wrangle plunge. And now, with a ringing,
wild snort, he seemed to double up in muscular convulsions and to shoot
forward with an impetus that almost unseated Venters. The sage blurred
by, the trail flashed by, and the wind robbed him of breath and
hearing. Jerry Card turned once more. And the way he shifted to Black
Star showed he had to make his last desperate running. Venters aimed to
the side of the trail and sent a bullet puffing the dust beyond Jerry.
Venters hoped to frighten the rider and get him to take to the sage.
But Jerry returned the shot, and his ball struck dangerously close in
the dust at Wrangle’s flying feet. Venters held his fire then, while
the rider emptied his revolver. For a mile, with Black Star leaving
Night behind and doing his utmost, Wrangle did not gain; for another
mile he gained little, if at all. In the third he caught up with the
now galloping Night and began to gain rapidly on the other black.
Only a hundred yards now stretched between Black Star and Wrangle. The
giant sorrel thundered on—and on—and on. In every yard he gained a
foot. He was whistling through his nostrils, wringing wet, flying
lather, and as hot as fire. Savage as ever, strong as ever, fast as
ever, but each tremendous stride jarred Venters out of the saddle!
Wrangle’s power and spirit and momentum had begun to run him off his
legs. Wrangle’s great race was nearly won—and run. Venters seemed to
see the expanse before him as a vast, sheeted, purple plain sliding
under him. Black Star moved in it as a blur. The rider, Jerry Card,
appeared a mere dot bobbing dimly. Wrangle thundered on—on—on! Venters
felt the increase in quivering, straining shock after every leap.
Flecks of foam flew into Venters’s eyes, burning him, making him see
all the sage as red. But in that red haze he saw, or seemed to see,
Black Star suddenly riderless and with broken gait. Wrangle thundered
on to change his pace with a violent break. Then Venters pulled him
hard. From run to gallop, gallop to canter, canter to trot, trot to
walk, and walk to stop, the great sorrel ended his race.
Venters looked back. Black Star stood riderless in the trail. Jerry
Card had taken to the sage. Far up the white trail Night came trotting
faithfully down. Venters leaped off, still half blind, reeling dizzily.
In a moment he had recovered sufficiently to have a care for Wrangle.
Rapidly he took off the saddle and bridle. The sorrel was reeking,
heaving, whistling, shaking. But he had still the strength to stand,
and for him Venters had no fears.
As Venters ran back to Black Star he saw the horse stagger on shaking
legs into the sage and go down in a heap. Upon reaching him Venters
removed the saddle and bridle. Black Star had been killed on his legs,
Venters thought. He had no hope for the stricken horse. Black Star lay
flat, covered with bloody froth, mouth wide, tongue hanging, eyes
glaring, and all his beautiful body in convulsions.
Unable to stay there to see Jane’s favorite racer die, Venters hurried
up the trail to meet the other black. On the way he kept a sharp
lookout for Jerry Card. Venters imagined the rider would keep well out
of range of the rifle, but, as he would be lost on the sage without a
horse, not improbably he would linger in the vicinity on the chance of
getting back one of the blacks. Night soon came trotting up, hot and
wet and run out. Venters led him down near the others, and unsaddling
him, let him loose to rest. Night wearily lay down in the dust and
rolled, proving himself not yet spent.
Then Venters sat down to rest and think. Whatever the risk, he was
compelled to stay where he was, or comparatively near, for the night.
The horses must rest and drink. He must find water. He was now seventy
miles from Cottonwoods, and, he believed, close to the cañon where the
cattle trail must surely turn off and go down into the Pass. After a
while he rose to survey the valley.
He was very near to the ragged edge of a deep cañon into which the
trail turned. The ground lay in uneven ridges divided by washes, and
these sloped into the cañon. Following the cañon line, he saw where its
rim was broken by other intersecting cañons, and farther down red walls
and yellow cliffs leading toward a deep blue cleft that he made sure
was Deception Pass. Walking out a few rods to a promontory, he found
where the trail went down. The descent was gradual, along a
stone-walled trail, and Venters felt sure that this was the place where
Oldring drove cattle into the Pass. There was, however, no indication
at all that he ever had driven cattle out at this point. Oldring had
many holes to his burrow.
In searching round in the little hollows Venters, much to his relief,
found water. He composed himself to rest and eat some bread and meat,
while he waited for a sufficient time to elapse so that he could safely
give the horses a drink. He judged the hour to be somewhere around
noon. Wrangle lay down to rest and Night followed suit. So long as they
were down Venters intended to make no move. The longer they rested the
better, and the safer it would be to give them water. By and by he
forced himself to go over to where Black Star lay, expecting to find
him dead. Instead he found the racer partially if not wholly recovered.
There was recognition, even fire, in his big black eyes. Venters was
overjoyed. He sat by the black for a long time. Black Star presently
labored to his feet with a heave and a groan, shook himself, and
snorted for water. Venters repaired to the little pool he had found,
filled his sombrero, and gave the racer a drink. Black Star gulped it
at one draught, as if it were but a drop, and pushed his nose into the
hat and snorted for more. Venters now led Night down to drink, and
after a further time Black Star also. Then the blacks began to graze.
The sorrel had wandered off down the sage between the trail and the
cañon. Once or twice he disappeared in little swales. Finally Venters
concluded Wrangle had grazed far enough, and, taking his lasso, he went
to fetch him back. In crossing from one ridge to another he saw where
the horse had made muddy a pool of water. It occurred to Venters then
that Wrangle had drunk his fill, and did not seem the worse for it, and
might be anything but easy to catch. And, true enough, he could not
come within roping reach of the sorrel. He tried for an hour, and gave
up in disgust. Wrangle did not seem so wild as simply perverse. In a
quandary Venters returned to the other horses, hoping much, yet
doubting more, that when Wrangle had grazed to suit himself he might be
caught.
As the afternoon wore away Venters’s concern diminished, yet he kept
close watch on the blacks and the trail and the sage. There was no
telling of what Jerry Card might be capable. Venters sullenly
acquiesced to the idea that the rider had been too quick and too shrewd
for him. Strangely and doggedly, however, Venters clung to his
foreboding of Card’s downfall.
The wind died away; the red sun topped the far distant western rise of
slope; and the long, creeping purple shadows lengthened. The rims of
the cañons gleamed crimson and the deep clefts appeared to belch forth
blue smoke. Silence enfolded the scene.
It was broken by a horrid, long-drawn scream of a horse and the
thudding of heavy hoofs. Venters sprang erect and wheeled south. Along
the cañon rim, near the edge, came Wrangle, once more in thundering
flight.
Venters gasped in amazement. Had the wild sorrel gone mad? His head was
high and twisted, in a most singular position for a running horse.
Suddenly Venters descried a frog-like shape clinging to Wrangle’s neck.
Jerry Card! Somehow he had straddled Wrangle and now stuck like a huge
burr. But it was his strange position and the sorrel’s wild scream that
shook Venters’s nerves. Wrangle was pounding toward the turn where the
trail went down. He plunged onward like a blind horse. More than one of
his leaps took him to the very edge of the precipice.
Jerry Card was bent forward with his teeth fast in the front of
Wrangle’s nose! Venters saw it, and there flashed over him a memory of
this trick of a few desperate riders. He even thought of one rider who
had worn off his teeth in this terrible hold to break or control
desperate horses. Wrangle had indeed gone mad. The marvel was what
guided him. Was it the half-brute, the more than half-horse instinct of
Jerry Card? Whatever the mystery, it was true. And in a few more rods
Jerry would have the sorrel turning into the trail leading down into
the cañon.
“No—Jerry!” whispered Venters, stepping forward and throwing up the
rifle. He tried to catch the little humped, frog-like shape over the
sights. It was moving too fast; it was too small. Yet Venters shot
once... twice... the third time... four times... five! All wasted shots
and precious seconds!
With a deep-muttered curse Venters caught Wrangle through the sights
and pulled the trigger. Plainly he heard the bullet thud. Wrangle
uttered a horrible strangling sound. In swift death action he whirled,
and with one last splendid leap he cleared the cañon rim. And he
whirled downward with the little frog-like shape clinging to his neck!
There was a pause which seemed never ending, a shock, and an instant’s
silence.
Then up rolled a heavy crash, a long roar of sliding rocks dying away
in distant echo, then silence unbroken.
Wrangle’s race was run.