He emptied his gun, drew the other, and ran, too eager for his deed of revenge to halt and take a steady aim. A bullet punctured the broncho"s ear, and the blood flew back upon Van.
They were past the walls in the briefest time, and Van attacked the slope. Barger came after, yelling in rage. He tripped, and his hurt leg dropped him down.
Already wearied, and famished for drink, Suvy nevertheless rose to the needs of the moment with a strength incredible. He scaled that sandy, treacherous slope like an engine built for the purpose. It was love, pure love for the master on his back, that steeled the mighty sinews in his body.
Two shots and two bullets from below proclaimed renewed activities where Barger was once more on his feet. But the man had lost too much ground to recover his advantage. He knew that Van Buren, with a horse like that, could win the high ridge and escape.
He raged; he cursed himself and his G.o.d, for this second failure of his deed. Then once again he abruptly thought of a chance whereby to redeem his galling failures. His man on the horse would be more than an hour in reaching the river by the slopes. A man on foot could beat him there, and beat him across to the farther side, from which to attack with surer aim--from the cover of the willows by the ford. The flood had subsided. This Barger knew. The water was hardly knee high on a man, and better than all, Van Buren would scarcely dream of such a plan as within the range of possibilities.
Laboriously, in a fever of impatience, Barger made shift, after strenuous work, to climb his barrier of rock. Then up to the summit of the trail he sped, and down on the farther side.
Meantime Van, disgusted with himself for riding away from a fight, could only revile his useless gun and excuse himself a trifle because of his defenselessness. The skirmish had served to arouse him, however, and for that he was thankful to the convict who had waited in the pa.s.s.
Then he wondered how it came at all that Matt should have thus been lying there in wait. The fellow must have been informed, to prepare so elaborate a trap. It hardly seemed as if a plot against his life could explain this trip that Beth had desired him to take. He could scarcely credit a thing so utterly despicable, so murderous, to her, yet for what earthly reasons had she sent him on the trip with a letter the stage could have carried?
The thing was preposterous! No woman on earth could have sanctioned an alliance with Barger. But--what of Bostwick--the man who had spent a portion of his time with the liberated convicts? A revenge like this would appeal to him, would seem to him singularly appropriate. Beth could have lent her a.s.sistance to the plan without guilty knowledge of an outcome such as this, and Bostwick--Beth knew that Barger was Van"s enemy. He had told her so himself. Facts were facts. Her letter to Glen revealed her state of mind--and here was this attack, a planned attack, proving conclusively that Barger had been prepared beforehand with knowledge of the trip.
From having been depressed before, Van was made thoroughly angry. The whole thing was infamous, dastardly--and Beth could not be acquitted.
Strangely enough, against the convict, Barger, the horseman felt no wrath. Barger had a grievance, howsoever mistaken, that was adequate.
He was following his bent consistently. He had made his threat in the open; he must plan out his work according to his wits. He was simply a hunted beast, who turned upon his hunters.
It was Bostwick on whom Van concentrated a rising heat--and he promised the man would find things warm in camp, and the fight only well under way.
Even when the summit was achieved, the broncho slacked off nothing of his pace. Sweat glistened wetly upon him. His bleeding ear was going backward and forward tremulously, as he listened for any word from Van, and for anything suspicious before them. Van noted a certain wistfulness in the pony"s demeanor.
"Take it easy, boy," he urged in a voice of affection that the broncho understood. "Take it easy." He dismounted to lead the animal down the slope, since a steep descent is far more trying on a ridden horse than climbing up the grade. He halted to pat the pony on the neck, and give his nose a rough caress, then on they went, the shadow they cast the only shade upon the burning hill.
It was fully an hour after leaving the pa.s.s, where Barger had piled in the rock, before the horseman and his broncho dropped again in the trail that led onward to the river. Van was again in the saddle.
Alert for possible surprises, but a.s.sured that his man could find no adequate cover hereabouts, he emerged from behind the last of the turns all eagerness to give his horse a drink.
A yell broke suddenly, terribly, on the desert stillness. It came from Barger, out in the river, on the bar--strangely anch.o.r.ed where he stood.
Van saw him instantly, saw a human fantastic, struggling, writhing, twisting with maniacal might, the while the horrible quicksand held him by the legs, and swallowed him, inch by inch.
"Fer Christ"s sake--help!" the creature shrilled in his plight. He had flung away revolvers, cartridges, even his coat, reducing his weight when the stuff only gripped him by the ankles. He was half to his thighs. He was sinking to his waist, and with all of his furious efforts, the frightful sand was shuddering, as if in animal ecstacy--some abominable ecstacy of hunger, voracious from long denial, as it sucked him further down.
"Fer Christ"s sake, Van Buren--fer Christ"s sake, man! I"m a human being," shrieked the victim of the sand. "_I"m a human being_, man!"
Van had not hesitated by so much as a moment as to what he meant to do.
He was off his horse in a leap. He paused for a second to looked about for any accidental means of a.s.sistance the place might afford. It afforded none. The man in the quicksand continued to yell, to struggle hopelessly, to sink in that shivering pool of life-engulfing stuff.
Then the horseman thought of his rope, the raw-hide la.s.so, always secured upon his saddle. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the knots to tear it loose.
"Don"t move--don"t struggle!" he shouted at the man, and down toward the edge he came running, the rope-noose running out as he sped.
He dared not step beyond the bank, and so involve himself. Barger was well out from the edge. The throw at best was long and difficult.
"Hold up your hands, above your head!" he called. "Don"t thrash around!"
The convict obeyed. His haggard, bearded face was turned to Van like a mask of horror. The eyes were blazing fearfully. The fellow"s att.i.tude, as he held his hands above his head, and continued to sink, was a terrible pose of supplication--an awful eloquence of prayer.
Van threw--and the cast fell short.
Barger groaned. He had ceased to yell. He remained mutely holding up his hands, while the cold abyss crept upward to his waist--the wet lips swallowing, swallowing in silence.
Van jerked in the rope with one impatient gesture. He coiled it swiftly, but with nicety. Then round and round he swung the gaping loop--and threw with all his strength.
For a second the loop hung snake-like in the air, above the convict"s head. Then it fell about him, splashed the curdled sand, and was pulled up taut, embracing Barger"s waist.
"Hoist it up under your arms!" called Van. "Try to move your legs when I pull!"
He wasted no time in attempting to haul the convict out himself. He led his pony quickly to the edge, took two half hitches of the rope about the pommel of the saddle, then shouted once more to his man.
"Ready, Barger. Try to kick your feet." To the horse he said: "Now, Suvy, a strong, steady pull." And taking the pony"s bit in hand he urged him slowly forward,
It was wonderful, the comprehension in the broncho"s mind. But the pull was an awful thing. The rope came taut--and began to be strained, and Suvy was sweating as he labored. Out on the end of it, bitten by the loop, that slipped ever tighter about him, the human figure was bent over sharply, between the two contending forces.
He let out one yell, for the pain about his chest--then made no further sound. The rawhide rope was like a fiddle-string. It seemed absurd that an anchor so small, so limber, in the sand, could hold so hard against the horse. Van urged a greater strain. He knew that the rope would hold. He did not know how much the man could bear before something awful might occur. There was nothing else to do.
It seemed a time interminable. No one made a sound. The queer, distorted figure out in the stream could have uttered no sound to save his life. The silence was beginning to be hideous.
Then an inch of the rope came landward, as the broncho strained upon it. The anchor had started from its hold.
"Now! now!" said Van, and with quick, skillful urging he caught at the slight advantage.
Like an old, half-buried pile, reluctant to budge from its bed in sand and ooze, the human form was slowly dragged from the place. No corpse, rudely s.n.a.t.c.hed from its grave, could have been more helplessly inert--more stretched out of all living semblance to a man.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No corpse s.n.a.t.c.hed from its grave could have been more helplessly inert.]
Across the firmer sand, and through a lagoon of water, Barger was hurriedly drawn. The pony was halted when the man was at the bank, and back to the convict Van went running, to loosen the bite of the noose.
Barger lay prostrate on the earth, his eyes dully blinking in the sun.
His feet were bare. They had slipped from his boots, which were buried beyond in the sand. His face had taken on a hue of death. From hair to his ankles he was shockingly emaciated--a gaunt, wasted figure, motionless as clay.
Van fetched a pint of water in his hat. He sprinkled it roughly in the convict"s face, and, propping up his head, helped him to take a drink.
Barger could not lift a hand, or utter a word. Van recoiled the rope, secured it on the saddle, then sat down to await the man"s recovery.
It was slow. Barger"s speech was the first returning function. It was faint, and weak, and blasphemous.
"It"s h.e.l.l," he said, "when G.o.d Almighty turns agin a man. Ain"t the sheriff"s enough--_without a thing like that_?" His thumb made a gesture towards the river, which he cursed abominably--cursing it for a trap, a seeming benefit, here in the desert, ready to eat a man alive.
Van made no reply. He rather felt the man was justified--at least in some opinions. Towards Barger he felt no anger, but rather a pity instead.
After a time the convict moved sufficiently to prop himself up against the bank. He looked at Van dully. This was the man who had "sent him up"--and saved him from the sand. There was much that lay between them, much that must always lie. He had no issues to dodge. There was nothing cowardly in Barger, despite his ways.
"I nearly got you, up yonder," he said, and he jerked his thumb towards the mountains, to indicate the pa.s.s where he and Van had met an hour before.
Van nodded. "You sure did. Who told you to look for me here?"