The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ you. Do you think I'm a coward? This is my country and I'll fight for it. Oh, I know what you're thinking! How will I stand up! Don't you worry about me. And I don't care a rap what anybody thinks! Maybe I can't be of any help. Maybe I'll even hinder you. But I'd die in Powder. I'd feel like a shirker, thinking about you doing the hard work and me doing nothing. No, we'll ride together, Red."

      She spoke her mind and turned half away, as if afraid to see the effect on the man. Lilly fumbled for his cigarette papers, disturbed profoundly. This was not at all as he had planned it. What could she be thinking of, anyway? In the midst of these troubled reflections he caught her eyes—and his uncertainty vanished. She was a fighter, like her daddy. And she had forgotten, it seemed, that she was a woman. He doubted if she realized what a curious, gossiping world would have to say.

      "Red, I know what you're thinking. Never mind me. I don't belong to any social clubs and so they can't kick me out in disgrace. It's my business. I'm not an infant—and I will fight for JIB!"

      He nodded. "All right. That's settled. We'll get along somehow. Now for a siesta. Come along."

      He took off the saddles and appropriated the blankets, leading her well into the thicket. It was a rough bed, among the rocks, but when she settled down she was already half asleep. Lilly bent over and folded a loose end around her shoulders, wondering if ever a girl had been fashioned quite like Jill Breck. The dark hair was all tousled, making her strangely boyish. Yet no amount of sun or rain or rough riding could conceal the beauties of the clear white skin of her neck or the pink flush on her cheeks. She had a drowsy, warming smile for him. Then she was plunged in profound slumber.

      Lilly walked down the slope to where Pattipaws crouched against the side of the cabin, warming himself in a patch of sun.

      "Old-timer," said Lilly, "I've got a chore for you to do."

      "Um. Pattipaws do."

      "It's a long trip. Sleep first."

      The Indian shook his head. "Pattipaws no need sleep. Sleep for young bucks. You fix'm."

      Lilly found a pencil and piece of paper in his pocket and after staring thoughtfully at the ground wrote a very brief message, signing his first name. He folded it and passed it to the Indian who tucked it in a pocket. Thereafter for three or four minutes Lilly carefully explained the contents and delivered his instructions. In the end the Indian rose, jumped on one of the horses—scorning a saddle—and pushed through the brush. Lilly watched him go and listened until he could no longer hear the rustling of leaves and the click of hoofs on the stony ground.

      One more chore he had to do before finding himself a moment's rest. Hiding the horses deep in the forest and likewise caching the saddles where they could not be seen by prying eyes, he started toward the summit of the peak. It was a long, weary climb and more than a half hour elapsed before he reached the top. Once there he was rewarded by a magnificent sight of the whole valley. It lay before him as a map unrolled on a table with each depression and each knoll visible under the hot summer sun. Here was an isolated kingdom, elevated above the burning desolation of the desert outside the rimming Buttes. And in the center of it huddled the buildings of the JIB. He could see them as so many dark specks against the yellow earth.

      But as for moving figures, he saw none. Not a thing seemed to tenant the valley. No tell-tale wisp of dust kicked up behind a traveling cavalcade. Trono had buried himself; Lilly, venturing a shrewd guess, believed the foreman was already in the pine forest seeking his erstwhile prisoners. The thought hurried his inspection and he turned down the slope, plunging through the trees. By-and-by, he heard a sound and he stopped dead, searching the brush with cautious eyes. It came but once and after a few moments he proceeded onward, using a great deal more caution. A warning had come to him, not anything tangible that he could put his five senses to, but still a warning that stayed his feet when he reached the edge of the little clearing again. Heavy silence pervaded it, broken by the sudden heavy beating of a grouse's wings. Far off, he thought he heard the click of rock against rock.

      Very still, very peaceful—yet a quick, unfathomable excitement took possession of Lilly and, without displaying himself he withdrew and he circled higher in the brush, aiming for the girl's covert. He crossed a small valley of trees on his stomach, crawled over heavy boulders and half fell into the pit formed by an uprooted pine. And of a sudden he was looking at the very spot he had placed Jill. The ferns and smaller brush were trampled down on all sides, the blankets thrown carelessly aside. And the girl was not to be seen.

      She had vanished without warning. But at the end of twenty fleeting minutes Tom Lilly read the story all too well. Trono had traced the hoof prints this far—Trono and a party of four others. And he had found the girl. There was the mark of struggle in the manner the brush had been beaten down; Jill had not surrendered without a fight, though it puzzled Lilly that she had not sent out at least one cry. The pine trees made a vast sounding board and would have carried her warning well up the slope. Perhaps she had—and he had been just beyond the range of hearing. At any rate, struggling had done her no good. Trono had taken her and made his escape.

      The horses were still tethered where he had left them. That, too, was peculiar. If they had sought through the underbrush for the girl and found her, how was it they had not discovered the horses?

      Lilly extended his radius of search, combing the rocky slopes and the long avenues between trees, coming at last to the conclusion that Trono had been satisfied with his single capture and was not in the vicinity, waiting to ambush him. Quickly saddling a horse and letting the other animal go free, he struck downward, following the trail. It was a clear trail in places, showing the homeward bound prints of Trono's horses. At other places it grew dim and was lost on the rock surfaces. Lilly pursued it as rapidly as his sense of caution allowed, at times striking into the woods and skirting such points and ledges as might form a decent place for a surprise.

      When he arrived at the edge of the timber he found the trail of the party diverged from the route leading to the JIB and swung westerly on a path that led directly toward the homestead and Jim's Pass. The thought that they were taking Jill away from her own house to some unknown hiding place enraged him beyond measure. He struck the flank of his horse, swearing softly.

      "Damn 'em, they can't get away with it! They can't do it! By the Lord Harry, I'll kill the man if he hurts her! I'll run the legs off him!"

      He spurred along the trail, growing reckless. During the fore part of the morning he had been very careful; the farther he traveled across the undulating floor of the valley the less heed he took of his own safety. He kept recalling the old man's last words. "You take care o the gal, Red." What a fine job he'd done so far! For all the good he'd accomplished he might as well be in China. Then he kept seeing her as she was in the covert, her black hair tousled, her sleepy eyes smiling upward at him. The fighting rage welled up and flowed over. Rising in the stirrups he scanned the ground ahead.

      Once, toward noon, he thought he saw something moving along the skyline near the homestead and he turned toward it, quickening the pace. Up and down the rolling slopes he galloped, the wild temper overmastering his caution. Once indeed he drew rein to give his horse a brief rest and in the breathing space he recalled Joe Breedlove's sage remarks about the unnecessary trouble red-head gents brought down upon themselves. He threw the thought aside and went on. "Joe never got into a jackpot like this," he muttered, squinting against the hard, glittering light. What good came of holding back, of caution? He had been careful and see what had come of it! "I ain't made on that plan," he reflected. "Better stick to my own method o' fightin'. And by the Lord Harry, I'll nail Trono's hide to the wall!"

      The long chase was rewarded at last. When he reached the top of a swelling ridge he saw the homestead shack nestling in the cottonwoods a hundred yards away. Around it were three horses, and loitering in the shade were three men. СКАЧАТЬ