"It"s what Lefever and Carpy want."
"They running things?"
"They think you"d get well full as quick at a hospital."
"What do you think?"
"I guess you would."
"Tired taking care of me?"
"Not yet, Abe."
"Raining?"
"h.e.l.l bent."
"What"s the other noise?"
"Thunder; and the river"s up."
The roar of the waters was not new to the ears of the two men who listened, however much it might have disturbed others unused to their tearing fury.
Hawk listened thoughtfully: "Why didn"t you pick a wet night?" he asked.
"We had to pick a dark one, Abe."
"Where"s the horses?"
"Over at my place--what"s that?"
The last words broke from Laramie"s lips like the crack of a pistol.
He sprang to his feet. Hawk"s hand shot out for his gun. Only practised ears could have detected under the steady downpour of rain, the deep roar of the canyon and the reverberation of the thunder, the hoof beats of a stumbling horse. The next instant, they heard the horse directly over their heads. Laramie, whipping out his revolver, looked up. As he did so, a deafening crash blotted out the roar of the storm--the roof overhead gave way and amid an avalanche of rock and timbers, a horse plunged headlong into the refuge.
In the narrow quarters so amazingly invaded, darkness added to an instant of frantic confusion. Laramie was knocked flat. In the midst of the fallen timbers, the horse, mad with terror, struggled to get to his feet. A suppressed groan betrayed the rider under him.
Laramie, where he lay, gun in hand, and Hawk, had but one thought: their retreat had been discovered and attacked. It was no part of their defense to reveal their presence by wild shooting. The enemy who had plunged in on top of them was at their mercy, even though unseen.
He was caught under the horse, and to clap a revolver to his head and blow the top off was simple; it could be done at any moment. Of much greater import it was, carefully to await his companions when they rode up, above, and pick them off as chance offered. Escape, if the raiding party were properly organized, both men knew was for them impossible--and they knew that Harry Van Horn organized well. The alternative was to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
This was by no means a terrifying conclusion to men inured to affray.
And for the moment, at feast, the situation was in their hands, not in the enemies".
A deluge of wind and rain swept through the broken roof. Laramie, stretching one arm through the debris, felt the shoulder of the rider, flung in the violence of the fall close to him.
The prostrate horse renewed his struggles to get to his feet.
Laramie, exposed to the pouring rain, covered with mud, bruised by broken rock still rolling down the open crater, and caught among rotten timbers, struggled to right himself before his enemy should do so. He raised himself by a violent effort to his elbow, freed his pistol arm and reaching over, pushed his c.o.c.ked revolver into the side of the fallen horseman.
A bolt of lightning shot across the crater, leaving behind it an inky blackness of rain and wind. The sudden onslaught from overhead might well have confused his senses; but he had seen the lightning sweep across a white, drawn face turned toward the angry sky--and in the flash he had caught the features of Kate Doubleday.
Stunned though he was by the revelation, he knew his senses had not tricked him. There was in his memory but one such riding cap as that which shaded her closed eyes; for him, but one such coil of woman"s hair as that falling now in disarray on her neck. Completely unnerved, he carefully drew away his revolver, averted the muzzle and spoke angrily through the dark: "Who"s here with you?"
There was no answer. He asked the question sternly again, listening keenly the while for sounds of other riders above. Had she discovered the retreat and led to it his enemies? Could it be possible that even they would allow her with them on such an errand and on such a night?
He called her name. The roar of the canyon answered above the storm; there was no sound else. Once more he stretched out his arm. His hand rested on her breast and he was doubly sure his senses had not tricked him. But she might be dying or dead. The fear struck home that she was dead. Then her bosom rose in a hardly perceptible respiration.
A storm of emotion swept Laramie. He squirmed under the debris that pinned him and got nearer to her. He listened still for sounds of an enemy, of those who must be with her--where could they be? The delicate breathing under his heavy hand came more regularly. Then a moan of pain checked and, again, released it.
Feeling slowly in the stormy dark for obstructions that might have caught her, Laramie freed one of her feet caught in the stirrup and by pushing and lifting at the shoulder of the horse succeeded after much exertion in freeing her other foot, caught under it. He felt his way back to Kate"s head and getting on his feet placed his hands under her shoulders to draw her toward him.
As he did so, a sharp question of fear and confusion was flung at him: "Where am I? Who are you?"
"Who are you?" echoed Laramie, pulling her away from the horse which had begun to struggle again. "Who"s here with you?" he demanded.
There was no answer.
"Who"s here with you?" he repeated sternly. "Tell me the truth."
"I"ve lost my way. Where am I? Who are you?"
The truth in her manner was plain. Incredible as it seemed that she could have strayed so far, all apprehension of an attack vanished with her questions.
"You"re a long way from home," he said, shortly.
She made no reply.
"Your horse took a header. You fainted. I suppose"--he hardly hesitated in his words--"you know who is talking to you?"
In her silence he heard his answer.
CHAPTER XXV
A GUEST FOR AN HOUR
"Can you stand on your feet?" he asked.
Supporting her as she made the trial he felt his way from where the horse had plunged through to where he found a partial seat for her.
"Are you much hurt?" he asked again.
She could not, if she would, have told in how many places she was broken and bruised. All she was sharply conscious of was a pain in one foot so intense as to deaden all other pain. It was the foot that had been caught under the horse. "I think I"m all right," she murmured, in a constrained tone and, in her manner, briefly. "How did you find me here?" she asked, almost resentfully. "Where am I?"
He knew from her words she had neither headed nor followed any expedition against him but he did not answer her question: "I"ll see whether I can get the horse up."
While he worked with the horse--and once during the long, hard effort she heard between thunder claps a sharp expletive--Kate tried to collect in some degree her scattered and reeling senses. What quieted her most was that her long and fear-stricken groping for hours in the storm and darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another--and to one who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet.
Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be sure he had found her: "I"m taking you at your word," he said, above the confusion of the storm.