"Darn 'em," Piegan grunted disgustedly. "They're next, now. An' they don't aim t' run the gantlet till they have t'. We got 'em penned, anyway; they can't get out uh that patch uh brush without showin'

themselves."

"Oh, Piegan!" MacRae called to us. He lay within easy shouting-distance, and managed to make himself heard without rising.

"h.e.l.lo!" Piegan answered.

"Can you fellows keep them from going up the canyon?"

"I reckon we can," Smith called back, "unless this smoke gets so blame thick we kain't see at all."

"All right. I'm going up on top, and throw it into them from above.

Maybe I can drive them out of the brush."

Piegan slapped me on the shoulder. "Darn our fool hearts," he exclaimed.

"We ought to 'a' thought uh that before. Why, he c'n pick 'em off like blackbirds on a fence, from up there on the bench!"

We did not see MacRae go, but we knew that he must have crawled through the sage-brush to the creek channel, where, by stooping, he could gain the mouth of the canyon unseen. Anyway, our time was fully occupied in watching the brush-patch that sheltered our plundering friends. They held close to their concealment, however, nor did they waste any powder on us--for that matter, I don't think they knew just where we were, and they were familiar enough with the gentle art of bushwhacking to realize that the open was a distinctly unhealthy place for either party to prospect.

It was a long time till we heard from MacRae again, and, lying there pa.s.sively, we grew afraid that after all they would give us the slip; for the smoke was now rolling in black clouds above the gorge. So far the thickest of it had blown overhead, but any moment a change of wind might whip it down the canyon bottom like an ocean fog, and that would mean good-by to Hicks & Co.

"That fire's mighty close, an' comin' on the jump," Piegan remarked, with an upward glance. "I wish she'd let up long enough for us t' finish this job. That smoke's as good as they want, once it begins t' settle in the gorge. What in thunder d'yuh s'pose Mac's doin' all this time. He ought t' show pretty quick, now."

He showed, as Piegan put it, very shortly. From the top of the opposite bank he fired a shot or two, and drew for the first time a return from the enemy. Then he broke off, and when he next gave hint of his whereabouts, it was to hail us from the nearest point on the canyon rim.

"Quit your hide-out and pull for the mouth of the gorge. Quick! I'll be there."

"What the h.e.l.l's up now!" Piegan muttered. "Well, I guess we'll have t'

take a chance. If they don't wing us before we get across this bald place, we'll be all right. Run like yuh was plumb scairt t' death, Flood."

We sprinted like a pair of quarter-horses across the thirty yards of bare ground that spread in front of the rock, a narrow enough s.p.a.ce, to be sure, but barren of cover for a jack-rabbit, much less two decent-sized men. My heart was pumping double-quick when we threw ourselves headlong in the welcome sage-brush--they had done their level best to stop us, and some of those forty-four caliber humming-birds buzzed their leaden monotone perilously close to our heads. That is one kind of music for which I have a profound respect.

From there to the creek-channel we crawled on all fours, as MacRae had done. Stooping, lest our heads furnish a target, we splashed along in the shallow water till we reached the mouth of the canyon. There we slipped carefully to higher ground. MacRae was scrambling and sliding down from above, barely distinguishable against the bank. Far up the gorge dense clouds of black smoke swooped down from the benchland.

Already the patch of brush in which lay the renegade Policemen was hidden in the smudge, shut away from our sight. We hailed MacRae when he reached the foot of the hill, and he came crashing through sage and buck-brush and threw himself, panting, on the ground.

"The fire," he gasped, "is coming down the gorge. They're cut off at the other end. They've got to come out here in a little while--or roast. The smoke would choke a salamander, on top, right now. We can't miss them in this narrow place, no matter how thick it gets. Look yonder!"

A wavering red line licked its way to the canyon-edge on the east side, wiped out the gra.s.s, and died on the bald rim-rock. Away up the creek a faint crackling sounded.

"Dry timber," Piegan muttered. "It'll get warm 'round here pretty directly."

The smoke, blacker now, more dense, hot as a whiff from a baker's oven, swooped down upon us in choking eddies. It blew out of the canyon-mouth like a gust from a chimney, rolling over and over in billowy ma.s.ses. The banks on either hand were almost invisible. We knew that our time of waiting was short. The popping of dry, scrubby timber warned us that our position would soon be untenable. The infernal vapors from the unholy mixture of green and dry gra.s.s, berry bushes, willow scrub, and the ubiquitous sage, made breathing a misery and brought unwilling tears to our stinging eyes. And presently, above the subdued but menacing noises of the fire, the beat of galloping hoofs uprose.

They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind, heading for the protection of the river. The pack-horses, necked together, galloped in the lead, and behind them Hicks, Gregory, and Bevans leaned over the necks of their mounts. They knew that we were waiting for them, but at the worst they had a fighting chance with us, and none with what came behind. So thick hung the smoky veil that they were right on top of us before they took tangible shape; and when we rose to our knees and fired, the crack of their guns mingled with that of our own. Gregory, so near that I could see every feature of his dark face, the glittering black eyes, the wide mouth parted over white, even teeth, wilted in his saddle as they swept by. Bevans and his horse went down together. But Hicks the wily, a superb horseman, hung in his off stirrup and swerved away from us, and the smoke closed behind him to the tune of our guns.

It was done in less time than it has taken to tell of it. There was no prolonged hand-to-hand struggle with buckets of blood marring the surrounding scenery, and a beautiful heroine wringing her hands in despair; merely a rush of horses and men out of the smoke, a brief spasm of gun-fire--it was begun and ended in five seconds. But there were two fallen men, and Piegan Smith with a hole through the big muscle of his right arm, to show that we had fought.

The pack-horses, with no riders at their heels to guide them, had tangled each other in the connecting-rope and stopped. Hicks was gone, and likely to keep going. So we turned our attention to Gregory and Bevans. Gregory was dead as the proverbial door-nail, but Bevans, on investigation, proved to be very much alive--so much so that if he had not been partly stunned by the fall, and thereafter pinned to the ground by a thousand-pound horse, he would have potted one or two of us with a good heart. As it was, we reached the gentleman in the same moment that he made a heroic effort to lay hold of the carbine which had luckily--for us--fallen beyond the length of his arm.

"Yuh lay down there an' be good!" Piegan, out of the fullness of his heart, emphasized his command with the toe of his boot. "Where's that girl, yuh swine?"

"Go to h.e.l.l!" Bevans snarled.

"Here," MacRae broke in hastily, "we've got to move pretty _p.r.o.nto_, and get across the river. That fire will be on us in five minutes. Sarge and I will gather up their horses. You keep an eye on Bevans, Piegan; he'll answer questions fast enough when I get at him."

While Mac dashed across the creek I captured Gregory's horse, which had stopped when his rider fell; and as I laid hand on the reins I thought I heard a shot off beyond the river. But I couldn't be certain. The whine of the wind that comes with a fire, the crackle of the fire itself, the manifold sounds that echoed between the canyon walls and the pungent, suffocating smoke, all conspired against clear thinking or hearing. I listened a moment, but heard no more. Then, with time at a premium, I hastened to straighten out the tangle of pack-animals. Mac loomed up in the general blur with Lessard's body on his horse, as I led the others back to where Piegan stood guard over Bevans.

"Ain't this h.e.l.l!" he coughed. "That fire's right on top of us. We got t' make the river in a hurry."

It was another minute's work to lash Gregory's body on one of the pack-horses, and release the sullen Bevans from the weight of his dead mount. As an afterthought, I looked in the pockets on his saddle, and the first thing I discovered was a wad of paper money big enough to choke an ox, as Piegan would say. I hadn't the time to investigate further, so I simply cut the _anqueros_ off his saddle and flung them across the horn of my own--and even in that swirl of smoke and sparks I glowed with a sense of gratification, for it seemed that at last I was about to shake hands with the ten thousand dollars I had mourned as lost. Then Piegan and I drove Bevans ahead of us and moved the spoils of war to the river brink, while MacRae hurried to the cottonwood grove after our own neglected mounts; they had given us too good service to be abandoned to the holocaust.

MacRae soon joined us with the three horses; out into the stream, wading till the water gurgled around our waists, we led the bunch. Then we were compelled to take our hats and slosh water over packs and saddles till they were soaked--for the fire was ravaging the flat we had just left, and showers of tiny sparks descended upon and around us. Thus proof against the fiery baptism, though still half-strangled by the smoke, our breathing a succession of coughs, we mounted and pushed across.

The high water had abated and the river was now flowing at its normal stage, some three hundred yards in width and nowhere swimming-deep on the ford. We pa.s.sed beyond spark-range and splashed out on a sand-bar that jutted from the southern bank. Midway between the lapping water and the brush that lined the edge of the flat, a dark object became visualized in the shifting gray vapor. We rode to it and pulled up in amaze. Patiently awaiting the pleasure of his master, as a good cavalry horse should, was the bay gelding Hicks had ridden; and Hicks himself sprawled in the sand at the end of the bridle-reins. I got down and looked him over. He was not dead; far from it. But a bullet had scored the side of his head above one ear, and he was down and out for the time.

We stripped the pistol-belt off him, and a knife. At the same time we rendered Bevans incapable of hostile movement by anchoring both hands securely behind his back with a pack-rope. That done, Piegan's bleeding arm came in for its share of attention. Then we held a council of war.

CHAPTER XXII.

SPEECHLESS HICKS.

When I spoke of holding a council of war, I did so largely in a figurative sense. Literally, we set about reviving Hicks, with a view to learning from him what had become of Lyn Rowan. He and Bevans undoubtedly knew, and as Bevans persisted in his defiant sullenness, refusing to open his mouth for other purpose than to curse us vigorously, we turned to Hicks. A liberal amount of water dashed in his face aided him to recover consciousness, and in a short time he sat up and favored us with a scowl.

"What has become of that girl you took away from Baker's freight-train yesterday morning?" MacRae dispa.s.sionately questioned.

Hicks glared at him by way of answer.

"Hurry up and find your tongue," MacRae prompted.

"I dunno what you're drivin' at," Hicks dissembled.

"You will know, in short order," MacRae retorted, "if you harp on that tune. We've got you where we want you, and I rather think you'll be glad to talk, before long. I ask you what became of that girl between the time you knifed Goodell and this morning?"

Hicks started at mention of Goodell. His heavy face settled into stubborn lines. He blinked under MacRae's steady look. Of a sudden he sprang to his feet. I do not know what his intention may have been, but he got little chance to carry out any desperate idea that took form in his brain, for MacRae knocked him back on his haunches with a single blow of his fist.

"Answer me," he shouted, "or by the Lord! I'll make you think h.e.l.l is a pleasure-garden compared to this sand-bar."

"Kick a few uh his ribs out uh place for a starter," Piegan coolly advised. "That'll he'p him remember things."

Yet for all their threats Hicks obstinately refused to admit that he had ever seen Lyn Rowan. What his object was in denying knowledge we knew he possessed did not transpire till later. He knew the game was lost, so far as he was concerned, and he was mustering his forces in a last effort to save himself. And MacRae's patience snapped like a frayed thread before many minutes of futile query.

"Get me a rope off one of those pack-horses, Sarge," he snapped.

I brought the rope; and I will brazenly admit that I should not have balked at helping decorate the limb of a cottonwood with those two red-handed scoundrels. But I was not prepared for the turn MacRae took.

Hicks evidently felt that there was something ominous to the fore, for he fought like a fiend when we endeavored to apply the rope to his arms and legs. There was an almost superhuman desperation in his resistance, and while MacRae and I hammered and choked him into submission Piegan gyrated about us with a gun in his left hand, begging us to let _him_ put the finishing touches to Hicks. That, however, was the very ant.i.thesis of MacRae's purpose.