"It's a quarter of a mile, isn't it?"

"More. Nearly a mile."

"Right. You stay here." He threw a pistol on the table. "Keep that to protect yourself," he added, brusquely. "And--Eve, if I get there in time, I'll save your brother. If I don't, your husband shall die, as sure as----"

But his sentence remained unfinished. He rushed out of the house and sought his horse. The animal was still grazing near by. He slipped the bit into its mouth. Then he sprang on to its bare back and galloped off.

And as he rushed out Eve fell back into a chair laughing and crying at the same time.

CHAPTER x.x.x

WILL HENDERSON REACHES THE END

Will Henderson stalked his prey with a caution, a deliberateness, as though he were dealing with a grown man, a man who could resist, one whose power to retaliate was as great as was his to attack. But nothing of this was in his thoughts. It was the fell intent to murder that now cast its furtive, suspicious, even apprehensive spell over his mind, and so influenced his actions.

As Elia at one time had trailed him, so he was now tracking Elia. From bush to bush and shadow to shadow he searched the bluff for the hunter of jack-rabbits. But the bluff was extensive, the night dark, and the movements of the snarer as silent as those of the man hunting him.

There was black murder in Will's heart, the cruel purpose of a mind turned suddenly malignant with a desire for adequate revenge. His was nothing of the fiery rage which drives a man spontaneously. He meant to kill his victim after he had satisfied his l.u.s.t for torture, and no one knew better than he how easy his task was, and how cruelly he could torture this brother of Eve.

The starlit night yielded up the bluff a wide black patch amidst a shadowed world. There was no moon, but the wealth of stars shed a faint glimmer of soft light on the surrounding plains. The conditions could not have been more favorable for his purpose, and they gave him a fiendish satisfaction.

He had skirted the bluff all round. He had pa.s.sed through its length.

And still no sign of his quarry. Twice he started up a jack-rabbit, but the snarer did not seem to be in the vicinity. Now, with much care and calculation, he began to traverse the breadth of the bush in a zigzag fashion which was to continue its whole length. His old trapping instincts served him, and none but perhaps an Indian would have guessed that a human being was searching every inch of the woodland shadow.

The man had already traversed a third of the bush in this fashion when the unexpected happened. For the tenth time he approached the southern fringe of the bluff and stood half hidden in the shadow of one of the large, scattered bushes outlying. And in the starlight he beheld a familiar figure out in the open, watching intently the very spot at which he had emerged.

There was no mistaking the figure, even in that dim light. Did not everybody know that head, bent so deliberately on one side? The hunched shoulders? The drawn-up hip? It was Elia, and, in the darkness, a fierce grin of satisfaction lit the murderer's face. He realized that the snarer must have heard his approach, and, believing it to be a jack-rabbit, had waited to make sure. The thought tickled his cruel senses, and he wanted to laugh aloud. But he refrained, and, instead, moved stealthily forward.

The bush hid him while he had a good view of his victim through its upper branches. And he calculated that if the boy remained standing where he was, with a little care he could approach to within a yard or two of him without being discovered. So he moved forward, circling the bush without any sound. It was wonderful how his training as a trapper had taught him the science of silent woodcraft.

As he reached the limits of his shelter he dropped upon his stomach and began to wriggle through the gra.s.s. It pleased him to do this. It gave him a sense of delight at the thought of the horrible awakening the cowardly boy was presently to receive.

A yard--two yards, he slid through the gra.s.s. Three. One more, and he would be near enough for his purpose. Suddenly and silently he stood erect, like a figure rising out of the ground. He was directly in front of the boy, and within arm's length of him. He stood thus for a second that his victim might realize his ident.i.ty thoroughly, and fully digest the meaning of the sudden apparition.

He had full satisfaction. Elia recognized him and stood petrified with terror. So awful to him was the meaning of that silent figure that he had not even the power to cry out. He shook convulsively and stood waiting.

The murderer raised one hand slowly and reached out toward the boy.

His hand touched his clothing, and moved up to his throat. The powerful fingers came into contact with the soft flesh, and closed upon it. Then it was that the moment of paralysis pa.s.sed. The boy fell back with a terrible cry.

But Will followed him up, and again his hand reached his throat. He grasped it, and tightened his fingers upon it. A gurgling cry of abject terror was the response. Again Will's hand released its hold.

But now he seized one of the boy's outstretched arms, and, with a sudden movement, twisted it behind his back so hard that a third cry, this time of pain alone, was wrung from the terrified lad.

He held him thus and looked into the beautiful face now so pitifully distorted with fear.

"Guess I've done the tracking this time," Will said through his clenched teeth. "You put me to a lot of trouble coming all this way.

Still, I don't guess I mind much. Most folks get their med'cine.

You're going to get yours to-night. How d'you like it?"

He wrenched the weakly arm till the boy cried out again, and dropped to his knees in anguish. But, with a ruthless jolt, Will jerked him to his feet, nearly dislocating his arm in the process.

"Oh, you're squealing, now, eh? You're squealing," he repeated, striking the boy on the hump of his back with his clenched first.

"That hurts too, eh?" As a fresh cry broke from his victim. "I always heard that the hump was tender in a dog-ghasted cripple. Is it? Is it?" he inquired, at each question repeating the blow with increased force.

He released his hold, and the boy fell to the ground. He stood looking down at him with diabolical purpose in his eyes.

"Say, you figgered to hand me over to the rope, eh? You guessed you'd stand by watching me slowly strangle, eh? So you trailed me, and went on to Doc Crombie and told him. Ah--h. You like hurting things. You like seeing folks hurt. But you're scared to death being hurt yourself. That's how I know. I could kill you with the grip of one hand. But it wouldn't hurt you enough. At least not to suit me. You must be hurt first. You must know what it's like being hurt, you rotten, loathsome earthworm!"

He dealt the lad a terrific kick on his sickly, sunken chest, and a terrible cry broke the silence. It was almost like the cry of a pig being slaughtered, so piercing and shrill a squeak was it.

The noise of his cry startled his torturer. After all they were not far from the village. Then he laughed. A cry like that from the prairie must sound like a hungry coyote calling to its mate. Yes, no one would recognize it for a human cry. He would try it again.

He dealt the prostrate boy another furious kick, and he had his wish.

A third time the blow was repeated to satisfy his savage l.u.s.t, and he laughed aloud at the hideous resulting cry. Again and again he kicked.

And the cries pleased him, and they sent a joyous thrill through him at the thought of the pain the lad was suffering. He would continue it until the cries weakened, then he would cease for a while to let his victim recover. Then again he would resume the fiendish kicking, and continue it at intervals, until he had kicked the life out of the deformed body.

He drew his foot back for another blow. But the blow remained undelivered. There was a rush of horse's hoofs, a clatter as they ceased, the sound of running feet, and a smashing blow took the torturer on the side of the jaw. He dropped like a log beside his victim. The whole thing was the work of an instant. So swift had come the avenging blow that, in the darkness, he had no time to realize its coming.

Jim Thorpe stood over his man waiting for him to rise, or show some sign of life. But there was neither movement nor apparent life in him. In the avenger's heart there was a wild hope that the man was dead. He had hit him with such a feeling in his frenzy of pa.s.sion. But he knew he had only knocked the brute out.

As Will remained still where he had fallen, Jim turned away with a sigh. It would have been difficult to interpret his sigh. Maybe it was the sigh of a man who suddenly relaxes himself from a tremendous physical effort; maybe it was at the thought that his momentary desire had been accomplished; maybe it was for the poor lad whose terrible cries were still ringing in his ears.

Thinking only of Elia, he now dropped on his knees beside him. There was sufficient light from the stars to show him the lad's pallid upturned face and staring, agonized eyes. In a second his arms were about his misformed body, and he tenderly raised him up and spoke to him.

"Look up, laddie," he said gently. "You aren't hurt too bad, are you?

I got here quick as I could. Say, he hasn't smashed you, has he? G.o.d!

if he has!" He looked round at the fallen man with blazing eyes, as the thought flashed through his mind.

But suddenly he felt Elia's body writhe, and he turned to him again with eager words of encouragement.

"Buck up, laddie," he said, without much conviction. "Guess you aren't smashed as bad as you think. It's Jim. I'll look after you. He won't hit you again. I've fixed him."

Elia's staring eyes suddenly lost their tension. He moved his head and tried to free his arms. Jim picked him up and set him on his feet, and noted that he breathed more freely. Yes, he had been in time.

Elia steadied himself for a moment against his arm. He was silent, and still breathing hard. His body was racked with fierce pain, but his poor distorted mind was suffering greater. Jim waited patiently. He understood. It was the awful shock that the boy, in his helpless fashion, was struggling with.

Some moments pa.s.sed thus, and at last the words which Jim was waiting for came. But they shocked him strangely.

"Did you kill him?" Elia asked, with a struggle controlling his halting tongue.

"No, boy, he's only knocked out--I think."

"You're a fule," whispered the lad viciously.

Jim had no answer to this, and the boy, recovering slowly, spoke again.