Nan of Music Mountain Part 36

She had never before seen a man shooting to kill another. The very horror of watching de Spain, at bay among the rocks, fascinated her.

Since the first day they had met she had hardly seen a rifle in his hands.

Realizing how slightly she had given thought to him or to his skill at that time, she saw now, spellbound, how a challenge to death, benumbing her with fear, had transformed him into a silent, pitiless foeman, fighting with a lightning-like decision that charged every motion with a fatality for his treacherous enemy. Her rifle, at his shoulder, no longer a mere mechanism, seemed in his hands something weightless, sensible, alive, a deadly part of his arm and eye and brain. There was no question, no thought of adjusting or handling or haste in his fire, but only an incredible swiftness and sureness that sent across the thin-aired chasm a stream of deadly messengers to seek a human life. She could only hope and pray, without even forming the words, that none of her blood were behind the other rifle, for she felt that, whoever was, could never escape.

She tried not to look. The b.u.t.t of the heating rifle lay close against the red-marked cheek she knew so well, and to the tips of the fingers every particle of the man's being was alive with strength and resource. Some strange fascination drew her senses out toward him as he knelt and threw shot after shot at the distant figure hidden on the ridge. She wanted to climb closer, to throw herself between him and the bullets meant for him. She held out her arms and clasped her hands toward him in an act of devotion. Then while she looked, breathlessly, he took his eyes an instant from the sights. "He's running!" exclaimed de Spain as the rifle b.u.t.t went instantly back to his cheek. "Whoever he is, G.o.d help him now!"

The words were more fearful to Nan than an imprecation. He had driven his enemy from the scant cover of a rut in the trail, and the man was fleeing for new cover and for life. The speck of black in the field of intense vision was moving rapidly toward the ranch-house. Bullet after bullet pitilessly led the escaping wretch. Death dogged every eager footfall. Suddenly de Spain jerked the rifle from his cheek, threw back his head, and swept his left hand across his straining eyes. Once more the rifle came up to place and, waiting for a heartbeat, to press the trigger, he paused an instant. Flame shot again in the gray morning light from the hot muzzle. The rifle fell away from the shoulder. The black speck running toward the ranch-house stumbled, as if stricken by an axe, and sprawled headlong on the trail. Throwing the lever again like lightning, de Spain held the rifle back to his cheek.

He did not fire. Second after second he waited, Nan, lying very still, watching, mute, the dull-red mark above the wet rifle b.u.t.t. No one had need to tell her what had happened. Too well she read the story in de Spain's face and in what she saw, as he knelt, perfectly still, only waiting to be sure there was no ruse. She watched the rifle come slowly down, unfired, and saw his drawn face slowly relax. Without taking his eyes off the sprawling speck, he rose stiffly to his feet.

As if in a dream she saw his hand stretched toward her and heard, as he looked across the far gulf, one word: "Come!"

They reached the end of the trail. De Spain, rifle in hand, looked back. The sun, bursting in splendor across the great desert, splashed the valley and the low-lying ridge with ribboned gold. Farther up the Gap, hors.e.m.e.n, stirred by the firing, were riding rapidly down toward Sa.s.soon's ranch-house. But the black thing in the suns.h.i.+ne lay quite still.

CHAPTER XXVIII

LEFEVER TO THE RESCUE

Lefever, chafing in the aspen grove under the restraint of waiting in the storm, was ready long before daylight to break orders and ride in to find de Spain.

With the first peep of dawn, and with his men facing him in their saddles, Lefever made a short explanation.

"I don't want any man to go into the Gap with me this morning under any misunderstanding or any false pretense," he began cheerfully. "Bob Scott and Bull will stay right here. If, by any chance, de Spain makes his way out while the rest of us are hunting for him, you'll be here to signal us--three shots, Bob--or to ride in with de Spain to help carry the rest of us out. Now, it's like this," he added, addressing the others. "You, all of you know, or ought to know--everybody 'twixt here and the railroad knows--that de Spain and Nan Morgan have fastened up to each other for the long ride down the dusty trail together. That, I take it, is their business. But her uncle, old Duke, and Gale, and the whole bunch, I hear, turned dead sore on it, and have fixed it up to beat them. You all know the Morgans. They're some bunch--and they stick for one another like hornets, and all hold together in a fight. So I don't want any man to ride in there with me thinking he's going to a wedding. He isn't. He may or may not be going to a funeral, but he's _not_ going to a s.h.i.+varee."

Frank Elpaso glanced sourly at his companions. "I guess everybody here is wise, John."

"I know _you_ are, Frank," retorted Lefever testily; "that's all right. I'm only explaining. And I don't want _you_ to get sore on me if I _don't_ show you a fight." Frank Elpaso grunted. "I am under orders." John waved his hand. "And I can't do anything----"

"But talk," growled Frank Elpaso, not waving his hand.

Lefever started hotly forward in his saddle. "Now look here, Frank."

He pointed his finger at the objecting ranger. "I'm here for business, not for pleasure. Any time I'm free you can talk to me----"

"Not till somebody gags you, John," interposed Elpaso moodily.

"Look here, Elpaso," demanded Lefever, spurring his horse smartly toward the Texan, "are you looking for a fight with me right here and now?"

"Yes, here and now," declared Elpaso fiercely.

"Or, there and then," interposed Kennedy, ironically, "some time, somewhere, or no time, nowhere. Having heard all of which, a hundred and fifty times from you two fellows, let us have peace. You've pulled it so often, over at Sleepy Cat, they've got it in double-faced, red-seal records. Let's get started."

"Right you are, Farrell," a.s.sented Lefever, "but----"

"Second verse, John. You're boss here; what are we going to do? That's all we want to know."

"Henry's orders were to wait here till ten o'clock this morning.

There's been firing inside twice since twelve o'clock last night. He told me to pay no attention to that. But if the whole place hadn't been under water all night, I'd have gone in, anyway. This last time it was two high-powered guns, picking at long range and, if I'm any judge of rifles and the men probably behind them, some one must have got hurt. It's all a guess--but I'm going in there, peaceably if I can, to look for Henry de Spain; if we are fired on--we've got to fight for it. And if there's any talking to be done----"

"You can do it," grunted Elpaso.

"Thank you, Frank. And I will do it. I need not say that Kennedy will ride ahead with me, Elpaso and Wickwire with Tommie Meggeson."

Leaving Scott in the trees, the little party trotted smartly up the road, picking their way through the pools and across the brawling streams that tore over the trail toward Duke Morgan's place. The condition of the trail broke their formation continually and Lefever, in the circ.u.mstances, was not sorry. His only anxiety was to keep Elpaso from riding ahead far enough to embroil them in a quarrel before he himself should come up.

Half-way to Duke's house they found a small bridge had gone out. It cut off the direct road, and, at Elpaso's suggestion, they crossed over to follow the ridge up the valley. Swimming their horses through the backwater that covered the depression to the south, they gained the elevation and proceeded, unmolested, on their way. As they approached Sa.s.soon's place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up his horse and sat a moment studying the trail and casting an occasional glance in the direction of the ranch-house, which lay under the brow of a hill ahead.

When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Elpaso was reading in the roadway. It told of a man shot in his tracks as he was running toward the house--and, in the judgment of these men, fatally shot--for, while his companions spread like a fan in front of him, Lefever got off his horse and, bending intently over the sudden page torn out of a man's life, recast the scene that had taken place, where he stood, half an hour earlier. Some little time Lefever spent patiently deciphering the story printed in the rutted road, and marked by a wide crimson splash in the middle of it. He rose from his study at length and followed back the trail of the running feet that had been stricken at the pool. He stopped in front of a fragment of rock jutting up beside the road, studied it a while and, looking about, picked up a number of empty cartridge-sh.e.l.ls, examined them, and tossed them away. Then he straightened up and looked searchingly across the Gap. Only the great, silent face of El Capitan confronted him. It told no tales.

"If this was Henry de Spain," muttered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined his companions, "he won't care whether you join him now, or at ten o'clock, or never."

"That is not Henry," a.s.serted Lefever with his usual cheer. "Not within forty rows of apple-trees. It's not Henry's gun, not Henry's heels, not Henry's hair, and thereby, not Henry's head that was. .h.i.t that time. But it was to a finish--and blamed if at first it didn't scare me. I thought it _might_ be Henry. Hang it, get down and see for yourselves, boys."

Elpaso answered his invitation with an inquiry. "Who was this fellow fighting with?"

"That, also, is a question. Certainly not with Henry de Spain, because the other fellow, I think, was using soft-nosed bullets. No white man does that, much less de Spain."

"Unless he used another rifle," suggested Kennedy.

"Tell me how they could get his own rifle away from him if he could fire a gun at all. I don't put Henry quite as high with a rifle as with a revolver--if you want to split hairs--mind, I say, if you want to split hairs. But no man that's ever seen him handle either would want to try to take any kind of a gun from him. Whoever it was,"

Lefever got up into his saddle again, "threw some ounces of lead into that piece of rock back there, though I don't understand how any one could see a man lying behind it.

"Anyway, whoever was. .h.i.t here has been carried down the road. We'll try Sa.s.soon's ranch-house for news, if they don't open on us with rifles before we get there."

In the suns.h.i.+ne a man in s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and leaning against the jamb, stood in the open doorway of Sa.s.soon's shack, watching the invaders as they rode around the hill and gingerly approached. Lefever recognized Satt Morgan. He flung a greeting to him from the saddle.

Satt answered in kind, but he eyed the hors.e.m.e.n with reserve when they drew up, and he seemed to Lefever altogether less responsive than usual. John sparred with him for information, and Satterlee gave back words without any.

"Can't tell us anything about de Spain, eh?" echoed Lefever at length.

"All right, Satt, we'll find somebody that can. Is there a bridge over to Duke's on this trail?"

Satt's nose wrinkled into his normal smile. "There is a bridge--" The report of three shots fired in the distance, seemingly from the mouth of the Gap, interrupted him. He paused in his utterance. There were no further shots, and he resumed: "There is a bridge that way, yes, but it was washed out last night. They're blockaded. Duke and Gale are over there. They're pretty sore on your man de Spain. You'd better keep away from 'em this morning unless you're looking for trouble."

Lefever, having all needed information from Scott's signal, raised his hand quickly. "Not at all," he exclaimed, leaning forward to emphasize his words and adding the full orbit of his eye to his sincerity of manner. "Not at all, Satt. This is all friendly, all friendly. But,"

he coughed slightly, as if in apology, "if Henry shouldn't turn up all right, we'll--ahem--be back."

None of his companions needed to be told how to get prudently away. At a nod from Lefever Tommie Meggeson, Elpaso, and Wickwire wheeled their horses, rode rapidly back to the turn near the hill and, facing about, halted, with their rifles across their arms. Lefever and Kennedy followed leisurely, and the party withdrew leaving Satterlee, unmoved, in the sunny doorway. Once out of sight, Lefever led the way rapidly down the Gap to the rendezvous.

Of all the confused impressions that crowded Nan's memory after the wild night on Music Mountain, the most vivid was that of a noticeably light-stepping and not ungraceful fat man advancing, hat in hand, to greet her as she stood with de Spain, weary and bedraggled in the aspen grove.

A smile flamed from her eyes when, turning at once, he rebuked de Spain with dignity for not introducing him to Nan, and while de Spain made apologies Lefever introduced himself.

"And is this," murmured Nan, looking at him quizzically, "really Mr.

John Lefever whom I've heard so many stories about?"

She was conscious of his pleasing eyes and even teeth as he smiled again. "If they have come from Mr. de Spain--I warn you," said John, "take them with all reserve."