"You d.a.m.ned, cowardly, murderin' pack of lousy coyotes!" swore Sam mechanically, as he knelt on the edge of the gap and tried to pierce the blackness, listening fearfully for a groan. He had not fired back. There was nothing to fire at but clumps of blurred growth. The shots had been too sudden, the shying of the horses too confusing for location.

He kneeled over the rim of the last plank, turned, caught with his hands, revolver thrust back into its holster, swung, dropped. A hand closed about his ankle, pulled him down sprawling on the soft sand.

"I'm O. K.," whispered Sandy, and Sam's heart leaped. "Only plugged the rim of my hat. I faked a fall to fool 'em. Snake erlong down the crick bed. Here's where we git even." Sam knew that ring in his partner's voice, low though it was, and his blood tingled. The high crumbly banks of the creek, gouged out by winter rains and cloud-bursts, were set with brush. Immediately above the bridge were the stripped trunks of cottonwoods, stranded in a flood. Peering through the boughs, they saw stooping figures running along the bank. A man called from the lower side of the bridge, a shot was fired harmlessly. The hunters in view raced back.

"Think they saw us," whispered Sandy. "They'll hear from us, right soon." He led the way back, crossing to the town side beneath the bridge, keeping half-way up the bank, close under the stringers of the bridge, crawling between bushes on his belly, Sam with him. Now they could see no gunmen but occasionally they caught a whisper, the slight sound of moving brush.

There was only a trickle of water in the bed of the creek. Here and there were small bars of bleached shingle and larger boulders. Sandy found a stone imbedded in the bank, loosened it, squatted on his haunches and pa.s.sed it to Sam, taking a gun in each hand.

"Chuck it into that sunflower patch," he said with his mouth close to Sam's ear. "Then fire at the flashes." Sam pitched the stone through the darkness. It fell with a rustle, c.h.i.n.ked against a rock. Instantly there came a fusillade from the opposite bank, four streaks of fire, the bullets cutting through the dried stalks, the marksmen evidently hunting in couples.

Sandy, crouching, pulled triggers and the shots rattled out as if fired from an automatic. Beside him, Sam's gun barked. Each fired three times, Sandy shooting two-handed, flinging six bullets with instinctive aim while the bed of the creek echoed to the roar of the guns and the air hung heavy with the reek of exploded gases. Then they rushed for the top of the bank, wriggling behind the cover of bushes, lying p.r.o.ne for the next chance.

One yell and a stream of curses came from across the arroyo. Two indistinct figures bent above a third, lifted it, hurrying back toward a clump of willows. The fourth man trailed the others, his oaths smothered, running beside the two bearers, his hand held curiously in front of him, dimly seen.

"They're through. That's enough," said Sandy. "We ain't killers."

"Got two of 'em," said Sam. "Good shootin', Sandy! I reckon I missed clean. I fired to the left."

"The man who's down is Butch," said Sandy. "I'd know his figger in a coal shaft. I've a hunch the other was Hahn. Hit him somewheres in the hand; spile his dealin' fo' a while. Let's git out of this. They've quit."

"Wonder if Plimsoll was with 'em. How about the hawsses? Can you whistle p.r.o.nto back?"

"Reckon so."

They walked toward the bridge and crossed it, pa.s.sing the gap on the side timbers. Plimsoll's men had departed with their casualties. Sandy whistled shrilly through his teeth. After a minute he repeated the call.

"Sure hate to hoof it to the ranch," said Sam. "Mebbe the shots stampeded 'em. Better not try to borrow hawsses in town, I figger."

"No. p.r.o.nto ain't fur. Yore roan'll stick with him. That pinto of mine is half human. I've sent him ahead before. Ef I'd yelled 'Home' he'd have gone. Shots w'udn't have scared him. Made him stand by--like Molly."

"Got yore money safe?"

"Yep."

There came a sound of pounding hoofs. Then that of others, coming from the town.

"Better load up, Sam," said Sandy grimly, "we ain't out of this yet.

That'll be Jim Plimsoll's brother-in-law, likely."

"Here come our ponies."

As yet they could see nothing advancing, but a horse whinnied from the plain lying between them and the Three Star road.

"p.r.o.nto," said Sandy, shoving cartridges into his guns.

A body of mounted men had come out from town and ridden fast upon the bridge. The foremost stopped with an exclamation at the missing boards.

All wheeled in some confusion and slid their horses down into the arroyo to scramble up the bank again and spur for Sam and Sandy just as the pinto and the roan, curveted up to their masters. The two cowmen leaped for their seats, Sandy temporarily sheathing one gun. They faced the townsmen who formed a half-circle about them.

"You, Sandy Bourke an' Sam Manning, stick up yore hands!"

"You got good eyesight," returned Sandy. "What's the idee? Ef you shoot, don't miss, I'm holdin' tol'able close ter-night."

His tone was almost good-humored, tolerant, full of confidence.

"You was shootin' in town limits. May have killed some one. Ag'in' the law to shoot inside the Herefo'd line. I'm goin' to take you in."

"You air?" Sandy's drawl was charged with mockery. "How about the Herefo'd men who stahted the fireworks? Ef you want our guns, Sheriff, come an' take 'em. First come, first served."

There was no forward movement. A man swore as his horse began to dance.

"You go back an' tell Jim Plimsoll to do his own dirty wo'k, if he's got any guts left fo' tryin'. Me, I'm goin' home."

The sheriff and his hastily gathered band of irregular deputies, working in the interests of Plimsoll, knew, with sufficient intimacy to endow them with caution, the general record of Sandy Bourke and Soda-Water Sam. None of them wanted to risk a shot--and miss. Sandy would not. Even a fatal wound might not prevent him taking toll. Sam was almost as dangerous. They were politicians rather than fighting men, every one of them. And they were tolerably certain that Plimsoll had ambushed the two from the Three Star. His methods were akin to their own. The sheriff bl.u.s.tered.

"I ain't through with you yit, Sandy Bourke. I know where to find you."

"You-all are goin' to have a mighty hard time findin' yo'se'f afteh election, Sheriff, as it is. The cowmen ain't crazy about you. They might take a notion to escort you out of the county limits."

"You're inside the town line. I----"

"I won't be in two minutes. Git out of our road," said Sandy, his voice freezing in sudden contempt. He roweled p.r.o.nto and, with Sam even in the jump, they galloped through the half-ring without opposition. Horses were neck-reined aside to let them pa.s.s. The wind sang by them as they tangented off from the road. A shot or two announced the attempt of some to save their own faces, but no bullets came near the pair. The fusillade was sheer bravado.

p.r.o.nto and the roan went at full speed, bellies low to the plain that streamed past, the manes whipping the hands of their riders, springing on sinews of whalebone through soapweed and mesquite, spurning the soil with drumming hoofs, night-seeing, danger-dodging, jumping the little gullies, reveling in the rush. Sandy and Sam sat slightly forward, loose-seated, thigh-muscles and knees feeling the withers rather than pressing them, balancing their own limber bodies to every movement of the flying ponies.

A late moon climbed out of the east and scudded up the sky, silvering the distant peaks. For almost a mile they rode at top speed, then they settled down to a lope that ate up the miles--a walk at the end of three--then lope and walk again, until the giant cottonwoods of the Three Star rose from the plain, leaves shimmering in the moonlight, the ranch buildings blocked in purple pin-pointed with orange--the pin-points enlarging, resolving into two lighted windows as they pa.s.sed shack and barn and rode into the home corral at last, to unsaddle, wipe down the horses and dismiss them for the time with a smack on their lathery flanks, knowing they would be too wise to overdrink at the trough, promising them grain later.

Mormon tiptoed heavily out on the creaking porch with a husky, "Hush!"

"What fo'?"

"Molly's asleep. 'Sisted on waitin' up for you."

"Well, we're here, ain't we?" demanded Sam. "Me, I got a sc.r.a.pe in my arm an' some son of a wolf spiled my saddle. Sandy, he sorter evened up fo' it."

"Bleedin'?" asked Mormon.

"Nope. Tied my bandanner round it. Cold air fixed it. Shucks, it ain't nuthin'! Sandy's got a green kale plaster fo' it. Come to think of it, I got ninety bucks myse'f."

"You won?"

"Did we win? Wait till we show you."

Molly met them as they went in, her eyes wide open, all sleep banished.

"Was it a luck-piece?" she demanded.

Sandy produced the package of bills, divided it, shoved over part.