RACING WITH DEATH
None knew better than the rancher and the mountain girl the peril
that lay behind that waving, quivering blue haze. The only avenue
open to them lay by way of the dark aisles between the pines, for
the blue haze, as they quickly discovered, had crept up on either
side as well as to the rear of them.
“Into the forest!” shouted Bindloss, giving his pony rein, while
Judy held in her bucking mount until her companions got under way.
The Overland girls were too frightened to start, but their mustangs,
taking matters into their own hands, lunged forward and were in
amongst the pines a few seconds later, dodging here and there to
avoid trees, until their riders were clinging with knees and hands
to keep from being unseated.
A thin streak of yellow smoke wriggled overhead, followed by a
crackling, hissing sound, and the wind whipping in the tree tops
carried the smoke on ahead. The fire had overtaken them, had run up
the trunks of the trees at the edge of the forest, and was leaping
from tree to tree over the heads of the Overland Riders, while here
and there to the rear great pines exploded with terrifying sounds.
The Overland Riders, despite their torturing fear, were thrilled.
The blood beat in their temples and their hearts were pounding. They
began to understand what this race meant—it was a race with death,
and its long arms were waving above them waiting to swoop down and
enfold its victims.
“Faster!” Judy’s shrill command was plainly heard above the roar.
She turned in her saddle and beckoned to her companions, not certain
that they had heard. It was then she saw that the haze was
enveloping them and that the outlines of horses and riders were
growing fainter. Judy reined in her mount and waited.
“Ride faster! Use the spur! Drive ’em! Drive ’em!” she yelled as the
girls swept past her, each one now urging on her mount with sharp
cries. The riders now plainly felt the heat, the breath of the fire
on their cheeks. So did the horses feel it, and they were frantic.
The tough little mustangs as they swept on needed no urging. They
were giving all that was in them to save their own lives, but it
seemed to be an unequal battle. The Overland Riders were not
panic-stricken, but a great fear was in their hearts, yet not one
gave way to her feelings. Perhaps it was because they had no time to
do so, for it required close attention to prevent being unhorsed as
their ponies made sudden swerves to avoid fallen trees or low
hanging branches. The Overland girls were thus kept fully occupied,
and it was plain to Judy Hornby that they were in no danger of
losing their heads.
Above the noise, she and Bindloss again heard the crack of rifles.
It was a scattering fire, but it was fast. Occasionally an interval
would occur, during which the firing seemed to cease, to be resumed
again a moment later.
“They are riding ahead of us. Look out!” shouted the rancher,
swerving close to the mountain girl.
Judy nodded, and spurred on until she was abreast of the racing pony
of Elfreda Briggs, who had lost her hat, and whose hair was whipping
in the air behind her.
“Something going on ahead! Watch out! Watch me fer orders. Tell the
others. I got to git ahead ag’in,” directed Judy.
Elfreda shouted the message to Grace, and Grace passed it to the
girl nearest to her, which proved to be Emma. Nora was too far to
one side to be reached, but her pony could be trusted to follow the
others if any radical change of direction were taken.
[Illustration: “Ride Faster! Drive ’Em!”]
Daylight suddenly showed faintly through the haze—the light of an
open space. Joe Bindloss uttered a yell, hoping that they might
there find rock footing and an end of the fire. Instead, his mustang
burst out into a vast brown field, a grazing ground many acres in
extent, from which rugged passes branched out in the distance.
As the riders emerged close on the heels of the rancher and Judy, a
scene met their gaze that thrilled them anew.
Two bodies of horsemen, like themselves, were fleeing from the fire,
which for some unknown reason had not yet leaped into the brown
grass of the grazing range, and as they rode, both bodies of men
were shooting.
It was a battle, a running battle with rifles.
Judy in one quick glance comprehended the situation and she saw more
than did any others of her party. She knew the men off there were
part of the band of rustlers who for so long had been a thorn in the
side of all honest ranchers in the two great grazing valleys of the
Cosos. She saw more than that—the verification of suspicions that
she had harbored for some time, but that had crystallized only
twenty-four hours before.
At about the same instant the Overlanders also made a discovery. The
party of horsemen directly in front of them were quickly identified.
“It’s the boys!” screamed Nora.
“Ain’t dead, neither,” cried Joe Bindloss.
The Overland Riders pulled down their ponies.
“Keep going!” roared Bindloss.
“If we do we shall be shot!” wailed Nora.
“If you don’t you’ll be roasted!” retorted the old ranchman.
It was a difficult choice. To go forward meant that the Overland
party would place themselves directly in the line of fire of the
mountain ruffians, but to hold back meant that the forest fire in a
few moments would be sweeping over the field. They decided to go
forward, and in a moment their ponies were racing towards Tom Gray
and his companions.
The fire was now roaring across the brown meadow. The Overland men
saw it and began drawing in on the rustlers, driving at them in an
oblique line, firing as they put their ponies at top speed. The
girls followed at one side of the line of fire, hoping thereby to
escape being hit.
A rustler toppled from his saddle. At the same instant Idaho Jones
swayed uncertainly in his, but quickly recovered and again began
working his rifle. Those who saw his hesitation knew that he had
been hit.
The rustlers were now in a thick haze, and were giving ground as the
ranchmen and Overland men bore down on them, pouring a heavy rifle
fire into the closely bunched outlaws. They saw the rustlers whirl
about facing their assailants to make a stand, but the firing was
too hot for them and they fled. A mighty yell rose from the rustlers
as all but two of them suddenly disappeared from sight as if the
earth had swallowed them. It was then that the pursuers discovered
that their adversaries had gained rocky ground. No forest fire could
reach them there.
The two men who were still in view pulled their ponies to their
haunches and swung about facing each other. The pursuers were amazed
to see both men draw their weapons and begin shooting at each other.
The Overland men and ranchmen instantly ceased firing, but continued
on at full speed, for the flames were rapidly sweeping down on them.
They had not yet discovered the presence of Judy and the Overland
girls, but Judy had discovered that safety from the fire lay at the
far side of the field, so waving a hand for her companions to follow
she headed towards the scene of the savage duel.
“Oh, it is awful!” cried Emma as her pony streaked past Miss Briggs
and Grace.
Judy was laying her crop over the flank of her mustang and uttering
shrill cries to urge him on, and the first intimation that the
ranchmen had of the presence of the Overland girls was when Judy
flashed by them towards the duelists.
“Kill ’im, Pap!” she yelled.
“It’s Mex!” shouted Sam Conifer.
At this juncture the Overland girls caught up with the pursuers and
dashed to safety on the rocky ground. As they reached it Miss
Briggs’ pony went down and Grace’s mustang leaped clear over her and
her mount before she could check him. Tom Gray hurried to the rescue
of Elfreda.
“You here?” he cried.
The roar of the fire, as it swept past over the brown meadow,
smothered the words.
One duelist, at this juncture, was seen to sway in his saddle, and
at the same instant the other plunged headlong to the ground. The
first man’s pony jumped and he too was unhorsed, then both duelists
laboriously raised themselves to their elbows, and the duel was
resumed. At the second exchange of shots, one sank back and lay
still.
Judy jumped her pony forward, and throwing herself from the saddle
ran to the living man and pillowed his head in her lap.
“Gosh a-mighty!” roared Bindloss.
The men of the ranch party were on the scene in a few seconds, but
still being ignorant of the cause of the sudden disappearance of the
body of rustlers kept their weapons at ready. Some of them now rode
cautiously forward to see what had become of the missing men.
“Stop!” shouted Two-gun Pete. “I know whar they’ve went to. The gang
forgot ’bout the gulch thar, if they knowed ’bout it at all.
Leastwise, they didn’t see it in the smoke till it war too late, an’
over they went. They won’t rustle no more steers, I reckons, bad
luck to ’em.”
The whole party was now gathered about the mountain girl. The dead
man, those who now knew him, was identified as Mexican Charlie.
“It’s Pap,” said Judy when they peered down into the face of the man
whose head lay in her lap. She gazed up at the Overland girls with a
pitiful look in her face.
Hornby opened his eyes, recognized her and began to speak.
“That’s all right, Pap. Don’t say it,” begged Judy.
“I got ter talk, Kid. I’m sorry I made ye mad yesterday. I told ye
thet them friends of yours war shot at Red Gulch ’cause I knew the
rest of their gang would be up heah, an’ we’d git ’em all. I wish we
had! I wish we had, but the boys got looney ’cause your friends
could shoot better’n they could, and ran over the edge.”
“Why did you an’ Mex fight, Pap?” asked Judy.
“’Cause he said I’d double-crossed him, an’ sent his gang to death
to git rid of ’em, too. Then we fit. He set the fire, but I told him
to.”
“Oh, Pap! How could you? These folks ain’t never meant you no harm.
They ain’t done nothin’ but fight when you made ’em,” protested the
mountain girl.
“Yes, they did! They come up heah lookin’ fer trouble. They wanted
to drive us out er business. I know ’cause I had it from a feller
who knowed. An’ ye helped ’em, Judy!” he exclaimed, blazing up into
her face with something of the old fire in his eyes.
“You bet I did, Pap. My friends is my friends, an’ I’d do it ag’in,”
she answered calmly.
“I don’t bear ye no grudge fer thet now, Kid, ’cause it’s too late.
I got mine this time, an’ I’m goin’ out the way I always reckoned I
would, with my boots on an’ facin’ the crack o’ the guns.”
As he talked, Hornby’s voice grew halting, and there were pauses of
a few seconds between words. It was plain to all that he was
weakening fast.
“May I try to do something for him, Judy?” begged Miss Briggs
gently, as she bent over the wounded rustler.
“_No!_” Hornby put all the strength that he could summon into that
one word. “Ye been lookin’ fer the man who war the leader of the
rustlers. Heah he is! I’m thet man, and as it’s my dyin’ words, I
beat ’em all at the game. Git ba—ack thar!” The rustler groped with
uncertain fingers for his weapon, whereupon Judy laid a firm hand on
his arm.
“No, Pap! You’ve done enough,” rebuked the girl. “You’ve said
enough, too, an’ Judy Hornby never again kin hold her head up nor
look honest folks in the face. They’ll say her Pap was a rustler
an’—an’—”
“Judy! Please don’t,” begged Grace. “He is dying!”
“I—I reckon you’re right.” Judy fell to stroking the outlaw’s hair.
“That’s all right, Pap. You’re my Pap. Miss Gray is right.”
“No! I got ter tell ye while I can. Judy, I ain’t yer Pap. Nor yer
mother warn’t yer mother. I stole ye when ye war a little thing
cause the man who was yer Pap had done me dirt. We raised ye, an’
Judy, we havin’ no children of our own, begun to like ye fer yerself
an’ we kept ye, though at first we didn’t reckon on doin’ jest that.
We reckoned on gettin rid—”
“No—ot my Pap?” stammered the girl. “Who, then—who is my Pap?”
cried Judy. “Tell me! Ye got ter tell me! Who is my Pap?” Her voice
rose threateningly, then sank almost to a whisper. “Pap, dear! Who
is my real Pap?”
“He—he—he war—”
The voice grew faint, and though the girl bent her ear close to the
lips of the dying man, she failed to catch the whispered words, and
the secret that Malcolm Hornby had kept for so many years died with
him there by the scorched meadows of the Cosos over which, like a
shroud, hung a suffocating pall of yellow smoke.
Old Joe Bindloss lifted the little mountain girl to her feet, and,
with hands on her shoulders, brought her face to face with him.
“I ain’t got no Pap now,” she murmured. “I ain’t got no friends, no
nothin’ that a girl wants so much.”
Grace Harlowe slipped an arm about her.
“Yes, you have, Judy. We are your friends, now and always,” said
Grace gently. “And I think you have a Pap that you haven’t reckoned
on,” she added, nodding towards Joe Bindloss.
For a moment the old rancher and the mountain girl stood gazing into
each other’s eyes, then he drew her, unresisting, to him and lightly
touched her forehead with his lips.
“Oh, Pap!” sobbed Judy, her arms slipping about the neck of Old Joe
Bindloss as she buried her head on his shoulder.