One of them was Silva.

They rode around the corral, noting the tracks. One of them rode in the direction the horses had gone, then returned, saying something to Silva. He shrugged, then walked his pony toward Angie.

She faced him, standing very straight, her face composed. To show terror could mean death, and she knew that of them all, Silva feared Vittoro less than the rest. He was, she knew, some sort of subchief.

"What do you want?"

He looked at her insolently. "Maybe soon you be my squaw."

"You?" Her contempt was plain. "Of all the braves in the lodges of the Apache, you would be the last, Fighter of Women!"

Silva's nostrils flared and temper quickened his eyes. It would not do to tempt this man too far, she realized. His was a hair-trigger temper, and he was naturally vindictive. Nor had he forgotten his defeat by her child. The story must have aroused many a chuckle in the wickiups.

One of the two braves riding with him was Emiliano. She remembered him instantly as one of those who had come with Vittoro to the squaw-seeking ceremony. He was a lean and powerful Indian, not the sort to be intimidated.

"I no fight women!" Silva's temper lashed at her. "I kill soldier! I count plenty coups!"

Sensing sympathy from the other Indians, she answered him. "And my child counted coup over you, Brave Warrior! And he is but six summers! Think, Brave Warrior!" Her contempt was thick. "What if he had been twelve?"

Silva started forward as if prodded with a lance, but Emiliano's voice rang sharply.

Silva whirled his horse and the two Indians faced each other, tempers flaring. The third Apache looked at her and she thought she detected a faint smile on his face. Whatever was said between Silva and Emiliano, the former suddenly wheeled his horse, and moved away.

The others hesitated a moment, and then Angie said quietly, "Thank you, Emiliano. I shall speak of this to Vittoro."

His eyes held her briefly, then the two wheeled their ponies and followed after Silva. It was only then that reaction set in. What if Emiliano had not been there? What if Silva had with him some braves more of his own nature?

He would never, she knew instinctively, make this mistake again.

Suddenly her knees began to tremble, and the muscles in her legs shook uncontrollably. She got to the house and sat down on the steps, and it was a long time before she could move.

She had been a fool to stay on. She had been a silly fool. What good would she be to her son if they were taken to an Indian village? What good would the ranch be to either of them?

She would think no more of Hondo Lane. She would not think of Ed. Neither of them would come. The latter was faithless and vacillating, the former had no reason to return. No real reason. She was a lonely woman and her loneliness had magnified his respect and a chance kiss into something that was not there.

She would think of one thing only: escape. When the planting rain came, she would go. And if the rains were hard, they would wash out her tracks, and she would take a direction where they would never expect her. Then she might escape.

In the night she was awakened suddenly. A waiting moment of silence, then a sudden rush of hoofs across the hard-packed yard, then a hoa.r.s.e cry. A long moment when there was no sound, then a shot and after it a long-drawn, wailing scream as of a mortal soul in pain.

Crouching by the window, rifle in hand, she peered out, and she could see nothing, only the moonlight on the cottonwood leaves, only the white-seeming roof of the stable, only the empty hills.

A dream? No. Johnny was crouching beside her, trembling, partly from cold and partly fear. He tugged at her arm. "Mommy! Mommy, what was that? What happened? Did the man come back?"

Did the man come back? She felt something like horror mounting within her. Had he come back and been killed at her door?

There was no more sleep. When Johnny was safely in bed she wrapped a blanket about her and sat by the window, the rifle at her hand.

Slowly, with a quiet chill, the night pa.s.sed. A faint yellow faded the eastern sky, the tips of the cottonwoods turned gold, like the sun-tipped lances of a moving army. The shadows in the yard drew back, hiding in the barn and under the brush along the stream, crouching there. A quail sent out an inquiring call, and somewhere across the basin another quail responded.

It was morning.

Chapter Twelve.

Phalinger and Ed Lowe had ridden back a quarter of a mile from Hondo's place of stopping, Lowe drew up. "Look," he said quietly. "We've got him. Right now he's makin' camp. He'll be mighty cautious. So we let him be. Come daylight, either before he's up or when he's gettin' up, we'll take him."

The gambler shrugged. "Your party." He studied the hills. "His fingers will be stiff then."

Phalinger looked at Lowe with a faint shadowing of contempt. "Don't take many chances, do you?"

"Why be a sucker?"

From the position Lowe had chosen, the arroyo was in view. They could not see Hondo Lane, nor could he see them, but escape from his camp was impossible without alerting them.

Phalinger was quiet. The farther he had gone, the less he liked any part of it. He was a man without qualms. Lowe knew little about him aside from his utter lack of scruples and the fact that he was a slick second-dealer who knew cards and who worked well with a partner. Phalinger had done murder in Missouri, drifted west into Kansas, then south into Texas. He was wanted in both places.

Yet he had an admiration for a brave man, and Hondo Lane was such a man. Despite the fact that he worked with Lowe, he despised him. Yet not even Phalinger knew that Lowe had deserted a woman in Indian country. Had he known, he might have killed him out of hand.

Phalinger was restless. Their camp was good. They needed no fire. They had food and whisky. Nevertheless, the premonition he had felt earlier now returned. Hondo Lane was carrying several months' wages from the Army and a small poke of gold of his own. It would make a rich haul, and gambling had not been profitable. Too many had lost to them and the word had gone around. It was time to drift, and without money drifting was impossible.

Broodingly he watched Lowe. What drove the man? What was there in him aside from greed and hatred? Yet no man was all bad. Phalinger, who was bad in most ways, knew that he himself was not all bad. Lying on his back he looked up at the stars, thinking about Lowe. He decided that Lowe was weak ... weak and jealous.

He would always, Phalinger decided, strike at what was stronger and better than himself. The only reason that Lowe had neither left him nor struck at him, the gambler was sure, was because he considered himself smarter or braver. The thought was galling.

"It better be tomorrow." He said the words suddenly. "I'm going back."

"It'll be tomorrow."

Hondo Lane had made dry camp in the gully. It was also a camp without fire. He was drawing too near to his objective now to take any chances. Also, there had been occasional dust along his backtrail, and once his eye had caught a flash of sunlight on some moving object behind him.

He could be mistaken, of course. But somebody seemed to be trailing him--somebody not an Indian. The bed he had chosen was in a small open s.p.a.ce in the middle of a thicket of mountain mahogany and p.r.i.c.kly pear. There was a little catclaw, too. In this place he could sleep without fear, for nothing human could approach his bed without making considerable noise.

On the soft sand he hollowed a place for his hips and rolled in his blankets and ground sheet. He slept, as always, gun in hand.

His saddle lay beside him, his rifle in the scabbard, and his horse was picketed a few feet away. Sam crept under the brush on his belly and put his dark muzzle down on his paws and looked at the man he loved.

The man had strange ways, but he was Sam's friend, and they understood each other. And upon this night Sam too was restless. Twice that day his nostrils had caught a vague smell, faintly familiar, but scarcely tangible. Sam was uneasy, no more.

A quarter of a mile apart three men looked at the night sky. One was discontented with his situation, but ready to accept the profits of murder; the second was thinking first of murder and second of profit; and the third, lying on the sand among the thorns and brush, thought of a cabin, of the firelight on a woman's face, and of her shadow on the wall as he tried to go to sleep.

The moving shadow of a woman on a wall, and the faint sounds of a woman working. It had been a long time, a long, lonely, restless time, since he had heard such sounds.

The lineback had found some gra.s.s. He pulled at it, then ate. The sound of his moving jaws was pleasantly relaxing. The man who thought of a woman went to sleep.

Twice in the night the dog awakened and looked at the man, then listened with p.r.i.c.ked ears. Had he heard something, far off? He listened and the night listened around him, and there was no sound, and the dark muzzle lowered to the paws against the sand, and the dog's eyes closed, and the horse, too, lay down.

A coyote moved to the arroyo's edge and lifted his nose to the sky, but catching the scent of dog and man, it moved warily away.

Three miles to the south and west a Mescalero walked up a trail, then suddenly stopped. His feet, sensitive through the moccasins, detected something wrong in the path. He knelt, his fingers explored, and he found the indentation made by a horseshoe.

He muttered something to the others, who gathered around him, and the three stood talking in undertones and looking away to the north and east. Then they walked their horses into a hollow hand of hills and prepared to wait until morning.

There was a white man ahead of them, and possibly more than one. These were scalps to be had, coups to be counted, and they would return to their village men made stronger by the death of enemies. Their dark faces relaxed and they did not talk. And then they, too, went to sleep.

And the planet turned slowly in the vast night sky, and the stars looked down, and there was a smell of damp and coolness in the air. Far over the mountains low clouds gathered. Perhaps the planting rain?

Under a quiet sky the planet turned, and horses ate, and men slept, and death waited for morning.

A bright star hung like a distant lamp in the sky when Hondo opened his eyes. He did not lie still. To awaken was to rise, and he did so now, getting swiftly to his feet, buckling on his gun belt, bolstering the gun, and drawing on his boots.

Sam came to his feet with one swift, unnoticed motion as Hondo rolled his bed. The dog growled low, and Hondo looked up at him, watching.

The Indians were near, and their moving disturbed a rattler, which coiled and sent out a short, sharp warning. Hondo relaxed, but Sam growled.

"Cut it out, Sam! I can hear him."

Yet in that instant, his perceptions sharpened by danger, he sensed something else. The dog was disturbed as he had not seen him before, and the dog was not directing his attention toward the sound of the rattler.

There was a frozen instant when Hondo's ears caught at sound, when with the instincts of a wild thing he dropped suddenly and rolled over the bank beneath its added protection, backed by the deeper portion of the brush-choked gully. As he moved, one swift grab slid the Winchester into his hands.

And after that single, violent, animal-like dive for safety, all was still, unmoving. And the movement itself had been relatively soundless.

Now Hondo lay still, listening, scarcely able to breathe. A bee buzzed near, landed on a bush. Hondo could see the texture of the wings, the flexing of the tiny muscles of the body. Sam was quiet. The lineback, seemingly aware of the sudden tension, was still. Not a sound disturbed the clear, bell-like beauty of the morning. There was nothing.

And then there was.

Two riders showed up suddenly on the canyon rim, rifles ready, starkly outlined against the morning.

Lowe and Phalinger had ridden their horses forward through soft sand. At first they considered crawling to the rim, but Lowe was aware of the dog's danger, and had no desire to come upon the big mongrel suddenly. It would be a simple matter to ride right up to the rim, keeping a s.p.a.cing of about twenty yards, then fire. Hondo Lane would be offered two snots, which was sure to make him hesitate an instant if he saw them at all, and they could cut him down.

The plan was perfect--up to a point. They had not counted on the alertness of Hondo Lane or the hearing of Sam.

Nor did they know about the Apaches.

Phalinger liked no part of it. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. He had no breakfast, and he desperately wanted coffee. They had killed their whisky during the long night and his nerves were jumpy. It was too quiet. Moreover, he was moved by the beauty of the morning. Something deep within him seemed urging him to stop, to breathe, to enjoy. This was something one could not buy in bottles. It was bright, clear, all too beautiful.

Phalinger had killed. He had shot men in the back, and he would not hesitate to do so again. Yet he loved life and loved it dearly, and in that awful moment of realization he saw in the clear, sharp beauty of the morning what wasted years he had left behind. He looked over at Lowe, started to speak.

And he hesitated. Lowe was alert, tense. His rifle was ready. Lowe was a killer, as are many cowardly things, and he could not accept that there should live things and persons superior to him. Angie's father had always been a better man, but wanting the ranch, Ed Lowe had played a game, fooling the father more successfully than he could ever fool the daughter.

Their horses walked in the soft earth. They moved forward, step by step. Before them their view of the arroyo widened, the morning grew brighter. The sun lay against the far bank and at their backs, for they had circled for this advantage, so that Hondo would have to fire into the glare of the sun.

Phalinger heard a bird call. He heard the soft fall of his horses hoofs. A leaf brushed his face, and off across the far hills there were low clouds. The very canyons, moraines, and hanging valleys showed sharply clear in the bright air. He liked the feel of the horse moving under him, liked the smell of it. He liked the smell of sage, and of crushed cedar. ... Why had he waited so long to realize this?

Lowe caught his eye with a signal. Phalinger's rifle came up. It was live or die now. They breasted the slope.

They saw the rolled blankets, the open s.p.a.ce in the brush, the linebacked horse ... and nothing else!

In that single, awful moment of awareness, both men were caught, suspended, in the moment. Both had expected a target, were ready for it ... and there was nothing.

Then from Phalinger's far right a flash of sunlight on a rifle barrel turned his head. For one swift, stark moment he saw the Apache, saw the dark, slim body, saw the rifle muzzle not forty yards away, and knew he looked upon death.

He lifted his rifle, and heard soft, gasping words torn from him. "Oh, G.o.d!" And then the rifle bullet smashed into his law, tearing through his throat, and he fell.

His horse sprang from under him. Vaguely he heard other shots, but they were not for him, nor was he for them. He lay flat on his face with the taste of blood and earth in his mouth and he was choking and he was seeing again the bright morning he had left, and with his last muscular effort he rolled over to look at the sky.

There was a white cloud there, so small, so lonely, so white against the vast blue dome of the morning. For day had come. It was here, and Phalinger looked up at the sky and saw the cloud fade and knew he was gone and he tried to speak past the blood and there were no words, there was nothing any more...

One moment there had been nothing and then the two riders appeared on the skyline. Their wide separation rang a bell of warning in Hondo's brain, but at the same time he knew that while it was this that had disturbed Sam, it was not this that had disturbed the rattler. And the crash of shots told him he was right.

He saw the nearer man drop, saw him hit the ground, heard a thin, despairing cry. Then he saw the other man drop also.

The Apaches had been following Hondo Lane. They had not expected two men. They had no reason to believe there could be three.

To count coup upon the body of a dead enemy is not so great a glory as to do it upon a living one. All three Apaches sprang suddenly forward ... into death.

The nearest Apache was a tall, splendidly built man, and he sprang eagerly, rifle held high. Hondo Lane's bullet took him under the breastbone, striking at an angle, and ripped out of his side below the heart. The splendid leap was the last movement, for when the Apache touched the ground all that amazing wiry strength was dead, a blasted, wasted thing, giving blood to the sand.

Hondo fired swiftly, saw the second man go down, the third vanish.

For an instant Hondo lay still. The second white man to be shot by the Apaches had fallen from his horse into the arroyo. Worming his way through the brush, Hondo made it to his side. It was Ed Lowe.

Even as he reached his side and laid down his rifle, the remaining warrior leaped from the brush into the saddle of Phalinger's horse and was gone from sight.

Hondo checked Lowe, then sat back on his heels. "You're not hurt too bad."

Lowe, badly shaken, sat up. Some color was returning to his face. There was blood on his shirt. He drew a picture from his shirt pocket. "This tintype saved me."

The bullet had struck his chest at a flat angle and, hitting the tintype, had glanced away, tearing the skin beyond it with a burn rather than a wound.

Hondo Lane got to his feet, picking up his rifle. "I wish that Indian hadn't got away. All the Apaches between here and the post will be alerted now."

"You mean we're cut off?"

"What else?" Lane turned to study the terrain carefully. It was time to move. No telling how far away there were other Indians.

As Lane turned away, Ed Lowe realized two things: Here was the man he had come to kill, and there was only one horse left--Lane's horse.

Hondo heard the sudden sharp growl from Sam. He sidestepped quickly as he turned and saw the flash of Lowe's gun. Hondo fired his rifle from the hip and the bullet smashed Ed Lowe back to the sand. His muscles convulsed, bringing him almost erect. Hondo Lane did not fire again.

Lowe came almost up, then fell, and there was no sound in the brightness of the desert morning. Hondo looked down at what had been Angie's husband, then picked up the tintype. It was a picture of Johnny.

He dropped to the sand, his face gray and ghastly, holding the tintype and his rifle and realization. And Sam came close and nudged against him, whining softly. And this time he was allowed to come close.