suggested Roberts with his sardonic smile.
Through rabbit weed and curly mesquite, among the catclaw and the p.r.i.c.kly pear, they followed the faint ribbon trail left by the outlaws in their retreat from the scene of the hold-up.
When it was too late to cut sign any longer, the Ranger gave orders to throw in to a small draw where the gra.s.s was good. At daybreak they were on the trail again and came within the hour to the body of Overstreet.
They dug a grave in a buffalo run with their knives and buried the body as well as they could before they picked up again the tracks of two horses now traveling much faster.
"They"re headin" for Palo Duro, looks like,"" commented Roberts.
"Looks like," agreed his friend.
Early in the afternoon the posse reached the little creek where the outlaws had breakfasted. Old Guadaloupe crisscrossed the ground like a bloodhound as he read what was written there. But before he made any report Roberts himself knew that a third person had joined the fugitives and that this recruit was a woman. The Ranger followed the Apache upstream, guessed by some feathers and some drops of blood that one of the outlaws had shot a prairie-hen, and read some hint of the story of the meeting between the woman and the bandit.
Was this woman some one who had been living in Palo Duro Canon with the outlaws? Or was this meeting an accidental one? The odd thing about it was that there was no sign of her horse. She had come on foot, in a country where n.o.body ever travels that way.
Roberts told Guadaloupe to find out where the party had gone from the camp. He himself followed into the desert the footsteps of the woman who had come across it toward the creek. He was puzzled and a little disturbed in mind. She had not come from the canon. What was a woman doing alone and on foot in this desert empty of human life for fifty miles or more?
He found no answer to his questions and reluctantly returned to the camp-fire. Guadaloupe was ready with his report. One man had started out on foot along the edge of the canon. The other man and the woman had struck on horseback across the plain.
"We"ll follow those on horseback," decided the Ranger at once. He could not have told why the urgent impulse was on him to do this, nor why he did not split his party and send part of his men in pursuit of the foot traveler. Later he laid it to what Jumbo would have called a hunch.
He was puzzled by the direction the two riders were taking. It led neither to the A T O nor to Tascosa, and was making no account of the streams where the travelers would have to find water. They seemed to be plunging ignorantly into the desert, but since Gurley or Dinsmore was one of the two this could not be. Either of these men could have traveled the Panhandle blindfolded.
They followed the tracks for hours. The line of travel was so direct that it told of purpose. Dinsmore--if the man were Dinsmore--evidently knew just what he was doing. Then, abruptly, the tracks pointed to the right, straight for the A T O.
But not for long. At the summit of a little rise the riders had plainly stopped for a few moments, then had turned and galloped fast for the southwest. The lengthening tracks, the sharpness of them, the carelessness with which the riders took the rougher ground to follow a straight line, all suggested an urgent and imperative reason.
That reason became plain to Roberts in another minute. A great number of tracks swept in from the left and blotted out those of the two flying riders.
"Chiricahua Apaches," grunted Guadaloupe. The scout had a feud with that branch of the tribe and was at war with them.
"How many?" questioned Jack.
The Indian held up the fingers of both hands, closed them, opened them, and a third time shut and lifted the fingers.
"Thirty?" asked the Ranger.
The Apache nodded.
"Dinsmore "s makin" for Palo Duro," remarked Wilkins as they followed at a canter the plain trail marked for them. "I"ll bet he don"t throw down on himself none on that race either. He"s sure h.e.l.l-bent on gettin"
there."
One of the riders called to the Rangers. "Look over to the left, Tex. We got company."
A little group of riders--three, four, five of them--emerged from behind a clump of Spanish bayonet and signaled with a bandana handkerchief. As they rode closer the heart of the Ranger died under his ribs. His stomach muscles tightened, and he felt a p.r.i.c.kling of the skin run down his back. For Clint Wadley rode at the head of these men, and like a flash of lightning the truth had seared across the brain of Jack Roberts. His daughter was the woman riding to escape from the savages.
The face of Wadley confirmed the guess of the Ranger. On the unshaven face of the cattleman dust was caked. His eyes were red and inflamed from the alkali and the tears he had fought back fifty times. The expression of the man was that of one pa.s.sing through the torments of h.e.l.l.
In five broken sentences he told his story. Quint Sullivan, escaping from his pursuers after a thirty-mile run, had reached the ranch in the middle of the night. Clint had gathered together such men as were at hand and started at once. At Crane Lake he had found no trace of her. He could not escape the conviction that the Apaches had captured Ramona and taken her with them.
On this last point the Ranger offered him comfort, though it was sorry comfort at that. Five hours ago she was still safe, but in terrible danger.
"Dinsmore"s a man--none gamer in Texas, Mr. Wadley. He won"t desert her," said Jumbo. "You couldn"t "a" picked a better man to look out for her."
"How do you know it"s Dinsmore? Perhaps it"s that yellow wolf Gurley,"
answered the father out of his tortured heart.
Jack was riding on the other side of Wadley. He, too, carried with him a private h.e.l.l of fear in his heart, but he knew that the big cattleman was nearly insane with anxiety.
"Because the man with Miss Ramona was takin" her back to the ranch when they b.u.mped into the "Paches. You know Steve Gurley would never have taken her home in the world," replied the Ranger.
"What can one man do against thirty? He"ll do what Quint here did--run to save his own hide."
Young Sullivan winced. It was the truth. He had run and left the girl to the mercy of these devils. But his one chance of helping her had been to run. He tried to say as much.
"I know that, Quint. I"m not blamin" you," broke out the father in his agony. "But my little lamb--in the hands of "Paches--G.o.d!" Wadley covered his eyes with his hand and tried to press back from his brain the horrible visions he kept seeing.
Jumbo stuck to his one valid point. "Bite yore teeth into this, Clint.
She"s got ridin" beside her as game a man as ever threw his leg over leather. He knows this country like you do yore ranch. He"ll hole up in Palo Duro where the "Paches won"t find "em, an" if the devils do he"ll sure stand "em off till we blow in."
His friend on the other side of the cattleman backed him up strongly, but the heart of the Ranger was heavy with dread.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
DINSMORE TO THE RESCUE
If "Mona lives to be eighty the high-lights of that wild ride will never fade from her memory. The mesas rolled in long swells as far as the eye could see. Through the chaparral the galloping horses plunged while the p.r.i.c.kly pear and the cholla clutched at their flanks and at the legs of the riders. Into water-gutted arroyos they descended, slid down breakneck shale ridges, climbed like heather cats the banks of dry washes, pounded over white porous _malpais_ on which no vegetation grew.
Now Dinsmore was in front of her picking out the best way, now he was beside her with cool, easy words of confidence, now he rode between her and the naked Apaches, firing with deliberate and deadly accuracy.
"Don"t look back," he warned her more than once. "My job is to look out for them. Yours is to see yore horse don"t throw you or break a leg in a prairie-dog hole. They cayn"t outrun us. Don"t worry about that."
The man was so easy in manner, apparently so equal to the occasion, that as the miles slid behind them her panic vanished. She felt for the small revolver in her belt to make sure it was safe. If she should be thrown, or if her horse should be shot, one thing must be done instantly. She must send a bullet crashing into her brain.
To the right and to the left of her jets of dirt spat up where the shots of the Indians struck the ground. Once or twice she looked back, but the sight of the bareback riders at their heels so unnerved her that she obeyed the orders of her companion and resisted the dreadful fascination of turning in her saddle.
It had seemed to "Mona at first with each backward glance that the Indians were gaining fast on them, but after a time she knew this was not true. The sound of their shots became fainter. She no longer saw the spitting of the dust from their bullets and guessed they must be falling short.
Her eyes flashed a question at the man riding beside her. "We"re gaining?"
"That"s whatever. We"ll make the canon all right an" keep goin". Don"t you be scared," he told her cheerfully.
Even as he spoke, Ramona went plunging over the head of her horse into a bunch of shin-oak. Up in an instant, she ran to remount. The bronco tried to rise from where it lay, but fell back helplessly to its side.
One of its fore legs had been broken in a prairie-dog hole.
Dinsmore swung round his horse and galloped back, disengaging one foot from the stirrup. The girl caught the hand he held down to her and leaped up beside the saddle, the arch of her foot resting lightly on the toe of his boot. Almost with the same motion she swung astride the cow-pony. It jumped to a gallop and Ramona clung to the waist of the man in front of her. She could hear plainly now the yells of the exultant savages.