Slowly and more slowly she ran, her breath coming in sharp little gasps that hurt. She staggered a few more feet, then with a tired sigh, sank to the ground, trying with her last conscious thought to remember whether it was Tatters or Doctor Powell lying dead, where the little scarlet thread kept creeping--creeping--creeping--.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

"Only a little way further, Peanut, old boy," Limber encouraged the pony, patting its neck as he swung once more to its back; and Peanut, knowing the distance home, started willingly on his way through the storm.

They were on the main road which led directly to the Hot Springs ranch, but a few feet from the creek-crossing it forked to the Circle Cross. As they neared this Y, the pony jumped and stopped, snorting. Limber leaped from his saddle and sheltered by Peanut's body, crouched low, holding his pistol ready. When the next flash came, illuminating the landscape as brilliantly as though it were midday, he slipped the pistol quickly into the holster at his hip and ran to a white heap huddled in the road.

Limber stooped at the woman's side and held his shaking hand against her heart; then he opened his flask and forced whiskey between the closed teeth, and chafed the cold hands. There was no response. Hurriedly, he unfastened the yellow slicker he was wearing, and gently wrapped it about the unconscious form. Then, lifting her in his arms, the cowboy mounted his pony, thankful that Doctor Powell was so near.

The wind blew the woman's hair across his lips, and a wonderful sense of happiness thrilled him. In the flashes he could see her pale face lying against his wet coat, and his heart throbbed with love and tender pity.

Doctor Powell opened the door in response to Limber's call. A vivid flash showed Peanut with Limber on his back holding Katherine in his arms.

"What's the matter, Limber?"

"I found her at the forks of the road on the ground. She's just fainted, I think," explained the cowboy as he placed the unconscious form in the doctor's arms.

Chappo ran from the house and took the reins from Limber, leading Peanut to the stable while the two men entered the house. The doctor laid Katherine on the couch and brought restoratives. Limber knelt beside her and gently chafed the cold hands.

"Glendon's broke jail at Tombstone with the rest of the bunch. There's a posse, comin' from Willc.o.x. I was comin' out to let you know; but they can't cross the Creek now. It's runnin' from bank to bank. Peanut just made it by a scratch."

The light from the lamp fell across the cut and bruised face, and Limber's eyes turned to Powell.

"Do you think she done that fallin' in the road?" he asked significantly.

"No," was the positive reply, as Powell studied her face. "It looks like a blow; besides, those are finger marks on her throat. I saw her two hours ago--she was all right then--Juan is away--I left her there alone."

Limber rose from the side of the couch and looked into Powell's eyes.

"n.o.body would lay a hand on her exceptin' Glendon."

Powell uttered no sound, but his face was pale with emotion as the cowboy went on speaking in low, tense voice.

"They got away at six o'clock, and if Glendon had a good mountain pony and took the old Indian trail, he could've got to the Circle Cross before now. If I knowed he'd hit her, I'd kill him on sight! She's the nerviest woman I have ever seen--and the finest."

Doctor Powell held out his hand and gripped Limber's.

"You've been a loyal friend to her, Limber."

"Thar ain't nothin' I wouldn't do for her," said the cowpuncher, simply.

"Thar's lines that is drawed between humans, jest as in animals. Glendon wasn't meant for her, noway."

Understanding each other thoroughly, the two men who loved her sat watching the unconscious woman until her eyes opened slowly, resting curiously on Limber; then as she saw the other man, her expression turned to one of terror. With a cry, she tried to rise, but Powell's hand restrained her.

"Lie still," he said quietly. "You are safe."

She looked up wildly. "Bar the door! Quick!" she cried. "He is coming to kill you!"

Their first impression that she did not realize what she was saying, vanished as they listened to her story. She did not speak of the blow, nor her refusal to hide away the money, but told them that Glendon had seen the doctor talking with her, and left the house with the avowed intention of killing him.

"Thar's been plenty time for him to get here ahead of you, Mrs.

Glendon," Limber a.s.sured her. "He'd a been here long before I found you at the forks of the road, if he was comin'. I guess he was just bluffin'

you, and when he found it didn't work he lit out with the two horses."

Powell agreed heartily with Limber, but to calm her fears, the cowboy barred the door. Katherine, succ.u.mbing to the sedative the doctor administered, relaxed gradually. Her lids closed wearily, but her lips moved, and in half-broken sentences she went over the terrible scene; pleading with her husband for Powell's life, or talking to the dead dog, begging it not to let the little scarlet thread reach her; then she sank into silence, unconscious of all that she had revealed.

The men's eyes met. They read each other's thoughts. Limber's face was set and white, as, with a nod to the doctor, he rose and tiptoed from the room into the kitchen where Chappo was sitting near the stove.

The cowboy took his pistol from the holster at his hip, and looked at the cylinder. Twisting it between his fingers he slipped the cartridges from it. They were wet from the rain.

"Got some lard?" he asked Chappo, and when the Mexican brought it, Limber greased the cartridges and put them back into the cylinder, then dropped the pistol into the holster of his cartridge belt. A Winchester rifle hung in a leather scabbard on the kitchen wall, and Limber lifted it down.

Chappo watched him examine the magazine of the gun.

"Eet is all right," he said. "Eet shoots good." The Mexican's eyes met Limber's. "You go hunting, Leember? Take heem."

"Yes. Give me some jerky, Chappo. I may not get any game for a couple of days."

Chappo understood, and hastened to get the stiff strips of sun-dried meat which he put in a small cotton sack and handed to the cowboy, saying, "Good luck, Leember! Shoot straight!"

With a grim smile the Mexican saw the cowboy and gun disappear.

Peanut looked up in surprised reproach as his master reached for the saddle hung on a peg. The pony knew he had well-earned his blanket and bin of oats that night.

"We've got some more work to do, Peanut," said Limber, throwing the saddle across the pony's back, and Peanut, with a final bite at the oats, turned again to face the storm with his master. The cowboy was sure that Glendon had pushed on toward the border, and not knowing about the gold he was carrying with him, supposed he had taken Fox as a relay horse. This would give Glendon the advantage should the chase be protracted; but, Limber knew that Peanut's nervous energy and staying qualities in the mountains made him equal to any two ordinary horses.

"We'll follow him till h.e.l.l freezes over, Peanut, and we'll sure get him in the end," said the cowpuncher as he rode into the night.

He did not try to justify himself by recalling that Glendon was an outlaw, whose capture or death was demanded by the law of the country; he did not remind himself that Glendon had killed old Paddy and had broken the unwritten law of fair play. It was the recollection of the woman with the cut face and finger-marked throat that sent Limber out into the storm. The woman Glendon had tried to drag into the mire of his own infamy as a reward for nine years of loyal devotion; the woman whom Limber had held in his heart and worshipped reverently.

Peanut slipped on the rain-sodden earth, and Limber, leaning forward in his saddle, kept his Winchester ready as he listened for the faintest indication of Glendon's presence. Limber did not believe that Glendon had carried out his a.s.sertion that he would go to the Hot Springs.

Otherwise, he would have been there long before. It was more possible that he had doubled back on his tracks, and struck out through the mountains toward the south, heading for the border, in order to cover his trail as much as he could by dawn. He would have to keep well-hidden in the day time.

Suddenly, from the darkness sounded the shrill neigh of a horse. Limber threw himself on Peanut's neck and reached down, grasping the pony's nose firmly to prevent him from answering. Still keeping a grip on Peanut's nostrils, the cowboy dropped to the ground, and stood back of the pony's shoulder, believing that Glendon had seen him and was creeping on him in the dark. The flashes of lightning were less frequent. The rain and wind raged more furiously.

Then from the gloom trotted a riderless pony, calling again and again as it approached them. A flash enabled Limber's keen eyes to recognize Fox.

With a little nicker of delight, it trotted to Peanut's side and stood rubbing its nose against the other pony's shoulder. Limber saw a weather-beaten saddle and new saddlebags on Fox's back, while a broken halter-rope dangled from the animal's neck. He knew the horse had broken away from Glendon, and was probably making its way back to the Circle Cross, the only home it had ever known. If so, Glendon would follow until he caught it, for he would need the extra horse in his long flight.

Limber hastily tied the broken halter-rope to the horn of Peanut's saddle, and left the two animals standing in the centre of the road as a decoy, while he crawled to a projecting clump of brush and slowly wormed his way parallel to the road. He was following Apache tactics, now. A prolonged flash of quivering, dazzling light, and Limber's half-blinded eyes scanned the brush and trees. Then the rifle leaped to his shoulder and his finger rested on the trigger.

Down the road he had seen Glendon. At the same time he knew that Glendon had seen him. Back into the brush he slipped lying flat on his face and writhing cautiously forward. There would be no time for a second shot--Glendon was waiting, too. How close was he, now? Inch by inch Limber dragged himself. Somewhere in the night, another man was crawling toward him, gun in hand--The man who had left the marks of his fingers on a woman's throat. G.o.d! Would there be no flash of lightning now that he needed just one more.

It came, as though in answer to his prayer. Dazzling, blinding and with frightful crash as though the whole world had fallen into s.p.a.ce and crushed another world to atoms. A sharp tingling pain shot through Limber's muscles, his gun dropped from his hand and exploded; he wondered if Glendon had hit him, but it was rain, not blood that soaked his sleeve.

He gripped his gun and threw another cartridge into place. Once more he began creeping and waiting. When another flash came, the cowboy lowered his gun, and rose to his feet. At the side of the road ahead of him was an uprooted cottonwood tree. Under it lay a horse and a man.