Bob McGraw watched Donna Corblay, and when she was about three hundred yards distant and beyond the town limits, he saw that a switch had been left open, for the velocipede suddenly left the outside track, cut obliquely across several parallel rows of tracks before she could control it, and shot in behind a string of box cars. As the girl disappeared, three dark figures sprang after her and a scream came very faintly against the wind.

Bob McGraw laughed and drew a gun from under his left armpit.

"I'd ride to h.e.l.l for you" he muttered joyously, and sank the rowels home in Friar Tuck.

CHAPTER V

As has been intimated elsewhere in this story, San Pasqual has the reputation of being a "tough" town. This is due in a large measure to the fact that it is a division terminal, and at all division terminals train crews must reckon with that element in our leisure cla.s.s which declines to pay railroad fare and elects to travel on brake-beams rather than in Pullman sleepers. Having been unceremoniously plucked from his precarious perch, the dispossessed hobo, finding himself stranded in a desert town where the streets are not electrically lighted, follows the dumb dictates of his stomach and the trend of his abnormal ambition, and promptly "turns a trick." Occasionally there is an objection on the part of the "trickee" and somebody gets killed. Naturally enough, it follows that the sound of pistol shots is frequently heard in the land, and since it happens nine times out of ten that the argument is between transients, the permanent resident is not nearly so interested in the outcome as one might imagine--particularly when the shooting takes place at night and beyond the town limits.

Harley P. Hennage had crossed from the eating-house, and had just reached the porch of the Silver Dollar saloon, when above the whistling of the "zephyr" he heard the m.u.f.fled reports of three pistol shots.

One "Borax" O'Rourke, a "mule-skinner" from up Keeler way, who had just arrived in San Pasqual to spend his pay-day after the fashion of the country, heard them also.

"Down the tracks," O'Rourke elucidated. "Tramps fightin' with a railroad policeman, I guess. Let's go down."

"What's the use?" objected Mr. Hennage. "A yegg never does any damage unless he's right on top of his man. They all carry little short bulldog guns, an' I never did see one o' them little bar pistols that would score a hit at twenty yards after sundown. They carry high."

At that instant the sound of another shot was heard, but faintly.

"That's the hobo" announced Mr. Hennage with conviction. "Them first three shots came from a life-size gun."

Half a minute pa.s.sed; then came the report of six shots, following so quickly upon each other that they sounded almost like a volley.

"Nine shots" commented "Borax" O'Rourke. "That's an automatic."

"That's what it is!" Mr. Hennage walked to the end of the porch. He was just a little excited. "It's all off with the hobo" he continued. "I know the man that's using that automatic, and he can shoot your eye out at a hundred yards. I saw him ridin' in just as I left the eatin'

house."

"He must have been movin' to get down there in such a hurry. What's a man on horseback doin' chasin' hobos across a web of railroad tracks, an' if he was headed south, seems to me he'd have laid over for supper--"

But Harley P. had a flash of inspiration now. "Come on, O'Rourke" he shouted, and made a flying leap off the saloon porch. Borax followed, and the two raced down the street at top speed--which, in the case of Mr. Hennage, owing to his weight and his bow-legs, was not remarkable.

Borax easily outdistanced him.

Meanwhile, a rather spectacular panorama had been unfolding itself back of the string of box-cars. Guided by Donna's screams, Bob McGraw sent his horse away at a tearing gallop, lifting him in great leaps across the maze of railroad tracks, and in a shower of flying cinders brought him up, almost sitting, in the little foot-path between two lines of track. Almost under Friar Tuck's front feet, Donna was struggling in the grasp of three ruffians, one of whom was endeavoring to tie a handkerchief across her mouth. The velocipede had been derailed by means of a car-stake placed across the track.

Bob McGraw's long gun rose and fell three times, and at each deadly drop a streak of flame punctured the moon-light. The three a.s.sailants went down, shot through their respective legs--which remarkable coincidence was not a coincidence at all, but merely a touch of kindly consideration on the part of Bob McGraw, who didn't believe in killing his man when wounding him would serve the same purpose.

As the three brutes dropped away from her the man from Owens river valley lowered his weapon, and Donna, pale, terrorized and disheveled, reeled toward him. He swung his horse a little, leaned outward and downward, and with a sweep of his strong left arm he lifted her off the ground and set her in front of him on Friar Tuck's neck, just as one of the wounded thugs straightened up, cut loose with his bulldog gun and shot Bob McGraw through the right breast.

Donna heard a half-suppressed "Oh!" from her deliverer, and felt him sway forward a little. Then, seeming to summon every atom of grit and strength he possessed, he whirled his horse, scuttled away around the rear of the box-car, out of danger, and set Donna on the ground.

"Wait here" he commanded, through teeth clenched to keep back the blood that welled from within him. "I was too kind--to those hounds."

He rode back and finished his night's work. War-mad, he sat his horse, reeling in the saddle, and emptied his gun into the squirming wretches as they sought to crawl under the car for protection.

Donna was terribly frightened, but she was the last woman in the world to go into hysterics. She realized that she was saved, and accordingly commenced to cry, while waiting for the horseman to reappear. A minute pa.s.sed and still he did not come, and suddenly, without quite realizing what she was doing or why she did it, the girl went back to the scene of the battle to look for him. She was not so badly frightened now, but rather awed by the silence, Donna was desert-bred, and in all her life she had never fainted. For a girl she was remarkably free from "nerves,"

and she had lived too long in San Pasqual to faint now at sight of the three still figures huddled between the ties, even had she seen them; which, she had not. All that Donna saw was a roan range pony, standing quietly with drooping head, while his master sprawled in the saddle with his arms around his horse's neck. Donna went quickly to him, and when the moon came out from behind a hurrying cloud she was enabled, with the aid of the ghastly green glare from a switch lantern which shone on his face, to observe that he was quite conscious and looking at her with untroubled boyish eyes.

His hat was lying on the ground, securely anch.o.r.ed by the pony's left fore foot. With rather unnatural calmness and following, subconsciously perhaps, her acquired instinct for salving hats for the men of her little world, Donna stooped, slapped the pony's leg to make him release the hat and picked it up. She stood for a few seconds, with the hat in her hand, looking at him pityingly. The man's brown eyes blazed with admiration.

"What a woman!" he wheezed. "You're brave--like a man. You came back.

I'd like--to live--to serve you further--"

He gurgled, a red stain appeared at the corners of his mouth, and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again his soul was shining through and he smiled a little. He did not again attempt to speak, yet, for all that, Donna heard the man-call to the woman that belonged to him, the mate for whom he had been destined when the world was first created. There are in this world personalities so finely attuned to each other that mere words are unnecessary to express the feelings of each for the other when first they meet. Between certain rare souls the gulf of convention may be bridged by a glance; the divine miracle of a pure and holy love, leaping to life in an instant, can suffer no defilement by a spontaneous and human impulse to grasp the precious gift ere life departs.

Some women love at first sight, but the vast majority, lacking the imagination to perceive, at a glance, the attributes that go toward the making of a Man, only think they love and delay a conventional period before yielding. But Donna Corblay had lived so long in sordid, unimaginative, unromantic San Pasqual that, from much inhibition and introspection, she was different from most women. She had grown to rely on herself, to trust her own judgment and to bank on first impressions.

As she faced Bob McGraw now, her first impression was that he was telling her with his eyes that he loved her, that he had ridden in behind this string of box-cars to purchase her honor at the price of his life, because he loved her. And inasmuch as there appeared to be nothing unusual or unconventional in his telling her this--with his eyes, Donna was sensible of but one feeling and one desire; a feeling of grat.i.tude to him for the priceless gift of his love and her honor, a desire to--

She dropped his hat, wiped the blood from his lips and kissed him.

Bob McGraw smiled wistfully.

"It's worth it," he whispered, "and few women are--worth--dying for."

"You must not die," the girl cried pa.s.sionately. "You're my Dream Man and I've waited so long for you and dreamed of your coming! I'll pray for you, I'll ask G.o.d to give you to me--"

An almost fanatical joy beamed in her wonderful eyes, the color had returned to her cheeks; and to Bob McGraw, faltering there on the edge of eternity, her radiant regal presence brought a wondrous peace. For a moment he saw the moonlight reflecting the light in her eyes; a strand of her hair blew across his face--he smelled its perfume; the intoxication of her glorious personality caused him to marvel and doubt his own waning sense of the reality of things. He leaned toward her hungrily and lapsed into unconsciousness, while his big limp body commenced to slide slowly out of the slippery saddle. She caught him in her strong arms, eased him to the ground and knelt there with his red head in her lap, showering his face with her kisses and her tears. It was thus that "Borax" O'Rourke, badly blown after his three-hundred-yard dash, found them.

"Great snakes, young lady, what's happened?" gasped Mr. O'Rourke.

"Three brutes and a man have been killed" she replied.

"What the--who--who's that feller? Are you--"

"Don't ask questions, Borax. I am not hurt, but I have no time to answer questions. Please remove that car-stake and replace the velocipede on the tracks."

Her cool demeanor, despite her tears, her terse commands, indicating a plan for prompt action of some kind, flabbergasted Borax to such an extent that he commenced to swear very fluently, without for a moment realizing that there was a lady present. And just at this juncture Harley P. Hennage arrived.

As might be expected, Harley P. wasted no time catering to the call of curiosity.

"Let me have him, Miss Donna," he ordered. "We'll put him on the velocipede and rush him up to the hotel. I'll--"

"No, Mr. Hennage. He belongs to me. Place him on the velocipede and help me take him home."

"To the Hat Ranch?"

"Yes, of course, I can care for him there, if he lives."

"Why, Miss Donna--"

"Do it, please" she commanded. "I know best. Set him on the little platform and tie his legs to the reach. Then stand behind him to work the lever, and let him rest against your knees. I'll follow with the horse."

"Remarkable! Very remarkable!" soliloquized the big gambler. Without further ado he proceeded to carry out Donna's orders.

"Borax," Donna continued, "you run up to the drug store and tell Doc Taylor what's happened. I'll send Sam Singer back with the velocipede for him."