"No," shouted d.i.c.k determinedly. It was as much his fight as Jack"s now.
Jack thought more for Echo in that moment than he did for himself.
Here was the man she loved. He must go back to her. The woman"s happiness depended upon it. But Jack realized that while he was alive, d.i.c.k would stay. One supreme sacrifice was necessary.
"Go," he cried, "or I"ll stand up and let "em get me."
"No, we can hold them off," begged d.i.c.k, firing as he spoke.
Jack"s hour had struck. It was all so supremely simple. There were no waving flags, no cheering comrades. He was only one of two men in the desert, dirty, grimy, and sweaty; his mouth dry and parched, his eyes stinging from powder-fumes, his hands numb from the effects of rapid firing. His mind worked automatically; he seemed to be only an onlooker. The man who first fought off the Apaches and who was now to offer himself as a sacrifice was only one of two Jack Paysons, a replica of his conscious self.
Swiftly Jack Payson arose and faced the Indians.
"Good-bye!" he cried to his comrade.
d.i.c.k struggled to his feet and threw himself on Jack to force him down behind the barricade. For a moment both men were in full view of the Apaches. A volley crashed up and across the canon. Both men fell locked in each other"s arms, then lay still.
The Indians awaited the result of the shots. The strange actions of the men might be only a ruse. Silence would mean they were victorious.
Both Jack and d.i.c.k had been struck. Jack was the first to recover.
Reviving, he struggled out of the clasp of his unconscious comrade.
"He"s. .h.i.t bad," he said to himself, "and so am I. I"ll fight it out to the last, and if they charge they won"t get us alive."
d.i.c.k groaned and opened his eyes.
"I"m hit hard," he whispered, "you"d better go."
Jack was on his hands and knees crawling toward his rifle when his comrade spoke.
"Listen," he replied. "We"re both fixed to stay now, so lie close.
I"ll hold "em off as long as I can, but if they rush, save one shot for yourself--you understand?"
"Yes, not alive!" answered d.i.c.k weakly, his voice thin and his face ashen white with pain.
Jack reached the boulder, and with an effort raised himself and peered over the edge.
"They"re getting ready. Will you take my hand now?" he asked, as he held it out to d.i.c.k.
"I sure will," his wounded comrade cried, grasping it with all the strength he possessed.
Jack smiled in his happiness. He felt he had made his peace with all men and at last was ready to meet death with a clear conscience.
"It looks like the end. But we"ll fight for it."
The shrill war-whoops of the Indians, the first sound they had made in the fight, showed they felt confident of overcoming the men in the next rush.
Jack and d.i.c.k had abandoned the rifles and were now fighting the Indians off with their revolvers as they closed in on them.
Hardie had halted the night before at Clearwater Spring. Finding it but mud and alkali, he had merely rested his men and horses for a few hours, and then pushed on for Apache Spring, where he hoped to strike water. The troop rode through the early morning hours, full of grit, and keen to overtake the Apaches, traces of whose flight were becoming more evident every mile. All weariness had vanished. Even the horses felt there was something in the air and answered the bugle-call with fresh vigor and go.
A scout first heard the firing at the spring. He did not wait to investigate, knowing he could do nothing alone. The volleys, the difference in the reports of the rifles, proved to him that one party was firing Springfields and the other Winchesters. He knew that the Apaches were being held off. Galloping back to the troop, he reported the fight to its commander.
The bugles sounded. The horses were forced into a gallop. With clashing accouterments and jingling spurs and bits, they dashed across the mesa to the head of the trail. Here they met Slim Hoover and his posse coming from an opposite direction.
The firing in the canon was more intermittent now. d.i.c.k and Jack were saving their revolver-shots. The Indians were closing in for the last rush.
Hardie dismounted his men and threw his troops as groups of skirmishers down the draws leading into one side of the canon. Slim and his posse were on the left flank, armed with revolvers. Hardie, with a section, dashed down the trail.
They came upon the Apaches with the rush of a mountain torrent, striking them in the front and on the flank. The cavalrymen fired at will, each plunging from one cover to another as he picked out his man.
The Indians, for a few moments, replied shot for shot. Their stand was a short one, however, and they began to fall back.
Slim entered the canon at the head of the scouts, driving the Apaches before him. Both Jack and d.i.c.k had fallen. Across the bodies a wave of the battle flowed.
Once the Indians rallied, but so sudden was the attack, so irresistible the forward dash of the cavalrymen, that they became discouraged, and broke and fled toward their horses, with the soldiers in pursuit.
Slim hurried to d.i.c.k"s side, seeing he was the worst hurt. As he knelt beside him, the dying man opened his eyes and smiled. Leaning over him, Slim heard him gently whisper: "Tell her I know she was true, and not to mind."
With a deep sigh, his eyelids fluttered, and all was still.
The scouts had taken charge of Jack, who was unconscious, and bleeding freely.
From the spring the fighting had drifted southward. Few of the Indians reached the horses, and fewer still got away. Scattering shots showed the hunt for those who fled on foot was still on.
Then soft and mellow over canon and mesa and b.u.t.te floated the bugle-call, recalling the cavalrymen to the guidon. Back they came, cheering and tumultuous, only to be silenced by the presence of their dead.
They buried d.i.c.k"s body near the spring, and carved his name with a cavalry saber on a boulder near-by.
At dawn the next day they began the long march back to Fort Grant.
Slim took charge of Jack, nursing him back to life.
CHAPTER XIV
The Round-up
Much has been written of the pa.s.sing of the cowboy. With the fenced range, winter feeding, and short drives his occupation once appeared to be gone. But the war of the sheep and cattlemen in the Western States has recently caused the government to compel the cattlemen to remove the fences and permit the herds of sheep and cattle to range over public lands, and this means a return of the regime of the cowboy, with its old inst.i.tutions.
Chief among these is the round-up.
A sheepman can shear wherever he happens to be. He can entrain at the nearest shipping-point to his grazing-bed. But a herd of cattle will range four hundred miles in a season, so the cattlemen will be forced to revive the round-up, and make the long drives either back to the home ranch, or to the railroad. More cowboys will have to be employed.
All the free life of the open will return. At work the cow-puncher is not of the drinking, carousing, fight-hunting type; nor again is he of the daring romantic school. He is a Western man of the plains. True, after loading up his cattle and getting "paid off," he may spend his vacation with less dignity and quiet than a bank clerk. But after a year of hard work with coa.r.s.e fare he must have some relaxation. He takes what he finds. The cattle-towns cater to his worst pa.s.sions. He is as noisy in his spending as a college boy, and, on the average, just as good natured and eager to have a good time.
Only a man of tried and proved courage can hold his job. Skill and daring are needed to handle the half-wild beasts of the herds. The steer respects no one on foot, but has a wholesome fear for a mounted man. Taken separately, neither man nor horse has the smallest chance with range cattle, but the combination inspires the fear noticeable among the Apaches for cavalryman as compared with their contempt for foot-soldiers.
The longhorned steer will fight with the ferociousness of a tiger. A maddened cow will attack even a man on horseback. The most desperate battles of the range are with cows who have lost their calves.
The cow-puncher first comes in contact with his cattle at the round-up.