"Put--your--coat--on me!" came somehow to his ears.
Slone started violently. Abashed, shamed to realize he had forgotten she was half nude, he blindly tore off his coat, blindly folded it around her.
"Lin! Lin!" she cried.
"Lucy--Oh! are y-you--" he replied, huskily.
"I"m not hurt. I"m all right."
"But that wretch, Joel. He--"
"He"d killed his father--just a--minute--before you came. I fought him!
Oh! ... But I"m all right.... Did you--"
"Wildfire ran him down--smashed him.... Lucy! this can"t be true....
Yet I feel you! Thank G.o.d!"
With her free hand Lucy returned his clasp. She seemed to be strong. It was a precious moment for Slone, in which he was uplifted beyond all dreams.
"Let me loose--a second," she said. "I want to--get in your coat."
She laughed as he released her. She laughed! And Slone thrilled with unutterable sweetness at that laugh.
As he turned away he felt a swift wind, then a strange impact from an invisible force that staggered him, then the rend of flesh. After that came the heavy report of a gun.
Slone fell. He knew he had been shot. Following the rending of his flesh came a hot agony. It was in his shoulder, high up, and the dark, swift fear for his life was checked.
Lucy stood staring down at him, unable to comprehend, slowly paling.
Her hands clasped the coat round her. Slone saw her, saw the edge of streaming clouds of smoke above her, saw on the cliff beyond the gorge two men, one with a smoking gun half leveled.
If Slone had been inattentive to his surroundings before, the sight of Cordts electrified him.
"Lucy! drop down! quick!"
"Oh, what"s happened? You--you--"
"I"ve been shot. Drop down, I tell you. Get behind the horse an" pull my rifle."
"Shot!" exclaimed Lucy, blankly.
"Yes--Yes.... My G.o.d! Lucy, he"s goin" to shoot again!"
It was then Lucy Bostil saw Cordts across the gulch. He was not fifty yards distant, plainly recognizable, tall, gaunt, sardonic. He held the half-leveled gun ready as if waiting. He had waited there in ambush.
The clouds of smoke rolled up above him, hiding the crags.
"CORDTS!" Bostil"s blood spoke in the girl"s thrilling cry.
"Hunch down, Lucy!" cried Slone. "Pull my rifle.... I"m only winged--not hurt. Hurry! He"s goin"--"
Another heavy report interrupted Slone. The bullet missed, but Slone made a pretense, a convulsive flop, as if struck.
"Get the rifle! Quick!" he called.
But Lucy misunderstood his ruse to deceive Cordts. She thought he had been hit again. She ran to the fallen Wildfire and jerked the rifle from its sheath.
Cordts had begun to climb round a ledge, evidently a short cut to get down and across. Hutchinson saw the rifle and yelled to Cordts. The horse-thief halted, his dark face gleaming toward Lucy.
When Lucy rose the coat fell from her nude shoulders. And Slone, watching, suddenly lost his agony of terror for her and uttered a pealing cry of defiance and of rapture.
She swept up the rifle. It wavered. Hutchinson was above, and Cordts, reaching up, yelled for help. Hutchinson was reluctant. But the stronger force dominated. He leaned down--clasped Cordts"s outstretched hands, and pulled. Hutchinson bawled out hoa.r.s.ely. Cordts turned what seemed a paler face. He had difficulty on the slight footing. He was slow.
Slone tried to call to Lucy to shoot low, but his lips had drawn tight after his one yell. Slone saw her white, rounded shoulders bent, with cold, white face pressed against the rifle, with slim arms quivering and growing tense, with the tangled golden hair blowing out.
Then she shot.
Slone"s glance shifted. He did not see the bullet strike up dust. The figures of the men remained the same--Hutchinson straining, Cordts....
No, Cordts was not the same! A strange change seemed manifest in his long form. It did not seem instinct with effort. Yet it moved.
Hutchinson also was acting strangely, yelling, heaving, wrestling. But he could not help Cordts. He lifted violently, raised Cordts a little, and then appeared to be in peril of losing his balance.
Cordts leaned against the cliff. Then it dawned upon Slone that Lucy had hit the horse-thief. Hard hit! He would not--he could not let go of Hutchinson. His was a death clutch. The burly Hutchinson slipped from his knee-hold, and as he moved Cordts swayed, his feet left the ledge, he hung, upheld only by the tottering comrade.
What a harsh and terrible cry from Hutchinson! He made one last convulsive effort and it doomed him. Slowly he lost his balance.
Cordts"s dark, evil, haunting face swung round. Both men became lax and plunged, and separated. The dust rose from the rough steps. Then the dark forms shot down--Cordts falling sheer and straight, Hutchinson headlong, with waving arms--down and down, vanishing in the depths. No sound came up. A little column of yellow dust curled from the fatal ledge and, catching the wind above, streamed away into the drifting clouds of smoke.
CHAPTER XX
A darkness, like the streaming clouds overhead, seemed to blot out Slone"s sight, and then pa.s.sed away, leaving it clearer.
Lucy was bending over him, binding a scarf round his shoulder and under his arm. "Lin! It"s nothing!" she was saying, earnestly. "Never touched a bone!"
Slone sat up. The smoke was clearing away. Little curves of burning gra.s.s were working down along the rim. He put out a hand to grasp Lucy, remembering in a flash. He pointed to the ledge across the chasm.
"They"re--gone!" cried Lucy, with a strange and deep note in her voice.
She shook violently. But she did not look away from Slone.
"Wildfire! The King!" he added, hoa.r.s.ely.
"Both where they dropped. Oh, I"m afraid to--to look.... And, Lin, I saw Sarch, Two Face, and Ben and Plume go down there."
She had her back to the chasm where the trail led down, and she pointed without looking.
Slone got up, a little unsteady on his feet and conscious of a dull pain.
"Sarch will go straight home, and the others will follow him," said Lucy. "They got away here where Joel came up the trail. The fire chased them out of the woods. Sarch will go home. And that"ll fetch the riders."