CHAPTER XI
A RESCUE
When Alice Marcum opened her eyes the timber was in darkness. The moon had not yet topped the divide and through an opening in the trees the girl could see the dim outlines of an endless sea of peaks and ridges that stretched away to the eastward. The voice of the Texan sounded in her ears: "Come alive, now! We got to eat an' pull out of here in an hour's time if we're goin' to fetch the bad lands by daylight."
Peering around the edge of her shelter tent she could see him, coffee-pot in hand, standing beside the tiny flame that licked at the dry pine shavings of a newly kindled fire.
He turned and made his way to the creek that burbled over the rocks a short way down the ravine and Alice drew on her riding-boots and joined Endicott who had made his way painfully toward the fire where he stood gazing ruefully at the begrimed wreck of a white collar which he held in his hand. The Texan returned and placed the coffee-pot close against the tiny blaze.
"When you get through invoicin' yer trooso, Winthrup, it wouldn't delay us none if you'd grasp that there hand-ax an' carve out a little fire-fodder." He glanced up at Alice. "An' if cookin' of any kind has be'n inclooded in your repretwa of accomplishments, you might sizzle up a hunk of that sow-belly, an' keep yer eye on this here pot. An' if Winthrup should happen to recover from his locomotive attacksyou an' hack off a limb or two, you can get a little bigger blaze a-goin' an', just before that water starts to burn, slop in a fistful of java. You'll find some dough-gods an' salve in one of them canvas bags, an' when you're all set, holler. I'll throw the kaks on these cayuses, an' Bat, he can wrastle with the pack."
Alice looked into the Texan's face with a peculiar little puckering of the brows, and laughed: "See here, Mr. Tex," she said, "of course, I know that java must be coffee, but if you will kindly render the rest of your remarks a little less caliginous by calling the grub by its Christian name, maybe I'll get along better with the breakfast."
The Texan was laughing now, a wholesome, hearty laugh in which was no trace of cynicism, and the girl felt that for the first time she had caught a glimpse of the real man, the boyish, whole-hearted man that once or twice before she had suspected existed behind the mask of the sardonic smile. From that moment she liked him and at the breezy whimsicality of his next words she decided that it would be well worth the effort to penetrate the mask.
"The dude, or dictionary, names for the above specified commodities is bacon, biscuits, an' butter. An' referrin' back to your own etymological spasm, the word 'grub' shows a decided improvement over anything you have uttered previous. I had expected 'food' an' wouldn't have hardly batted an' eye at 'viands,' an' the caliginous part of it is good, only, if you aim to obfuscate my convolutions you'll have to dig a little deeper. Entirely irrelevant to syntax an' the allied trades, as the feller says, I'll add that them leggin's of yourn is on the wrong legs, an' here comes Winthrup with a chip."
Turning abruptly, the man made his way toward the horses, and as Endicott approached with an armful of firewood, the contrast between the men was brought sharply to the girl's notice. The Texan, easy and lithe of movement as an animal born to the wild, the very tilt of his soft-brimmed hat and the set of his clothing bespeaking conscious mastery of his environment—a mastery that the girl knew was not confined to the subduing of wild cattle and horses and the following of obscure trails in the nighttime. Never for a moment had the air of self-confidence deserted him. With the same easy assurance that he had flung his loop about the shoulders of the Mayor of Wolf River he had carried off the honours of the tournament, insulted Purdy to his face, dictated to the deputy sheriff, and planned and carried out the release of Endicott from the grip of the law. And what was most surprising of all, never had he shown a trace of the boorish embarrassment or self-consciousness which, up to the moment of his brutal attack upon her, had characterized the attitude of Purdy. And the girl realized that beneath his picturesque slurring and slashing of English, was a familiarity with words that had never been picked up in the cow-country.
Endicott tossed down his wood, and Alice could not help but notice the sorry appearance of the erstwhile faultlessly dressed gentleman who stood collarless and unshaven, the once delicately lined silk shirt filthy with trail dust, and the tailored suit wrinkled and misshapen as the clothing of a tramp. She noted, too, that his movements were awkward and slow with the pain of overtaxed muscles, and that the stiff derby hat he had been forced to jam down almost to the tops of his ears had left a grimy red band across his forehead. She smiled as her eyes swept the dishevelled and uncouth figure.
"I am glad," said Endicott with asperity, as he brushed the dirt and bits of bark from his coat, "that you find the situation so humorous. It must be highly gratifying to know that it is of your own making."
The tone roused the girl's anger and she glanced up as she finished lacing her leggings.
"Yes," she answered, sweetly, "it is—very. And one of the most amusing features is to watch how a man's disposition crabs with the mussing of his clothing. No wonder the men who live out here wear things that won't muss, or there wouldn't be but one left and he'd be just a concentrated chunk of unadulterated venom. Really, Winthrop, you do look horrid, and your disposition is perfectly nasty. But, cheer up, the worst is yet to come, and if you will go down to the creek and wash your hands, you can come back and help me with the grub. You can get busy and dig the dough-gods and salve out of that sack while I sizzle up the sow-belly."
Endicott regarded her with a frown of disapproval: "Why this preposterous and vulgar talk?"
"Adaptability to environment," piped the girl, glibly. "You can't get along by speaking New York in Montana, any easier than you can with English in Cincinnati."
Endicott turned away with a sniff of disgust, and the girl's lips drew into a smile which she meant to be an exact replica of the Texan's as she proceeded to slice strips of bacon into the frying-pan.
The meal was a silent affair, and during its progress the moon rose clear of the divide and hung, a great orange ball, above the high-flung peaks. Almost simultaneously with the rising of the moon, the wind rose, and scuds of cloud-vapour passed, low down, blurring the higher peaks.
"We got to get a move on," opined the Texan, with an eye on the clouds. "Throw them dishes into the pack the way they are, an' we'll clean 'em when we've got more time. There's a storm brewin' west of here an' we want to get as far as we can before she hits."
By the time the others were in the saddle, Bat was throwing the final hitch on his pack outfit, and with the Texan in the lead, the little cavalcade headed southward.
An hour's climb, during which they skirted patches of scrub pine, clattered over the loose rocks of ridges, and followed narrow, brush-choked coulees to their sources, found them on the crest of the Cow Creek divide.
The wind, blowing half a gale from the south-east, whipped about their faces and roared and whistled among the rocks and scrub timber. Alice's eyes followed the Texan's glance toward the west and there, low down on the serried horizon she could see the black mass of a cloud bank.
"You can't tell nothin' about those thunderheads. They might hold off 'til along towards mornin', they might pile up on us in an hour, and they might not break at all," vouchsafed the man, as Alice reined in her horse close beside his.
"But the wind is from the other direction!"
"Yes, it generally is when the thunder-storms get in their work. If we can get past the Johnson fences we can take it easy an' camp most anywhere when the storm hits, but if we get caught on this side without no moonlight to travel by an' have to camp over tomorrow in some coulee, there's no tellin' who'll run onto us. This south slope's infested some plentiful by the riders of three or four outfits." He headed his horse down the steep descent, the others following in single file.
As the coulee widened Alice found herself riding by the Texan's side. "Oh, don't you just love the wild country!" she exclaimed, breaking a long interval of silence. "The plains and the mountains, the woods and the creeks, and the wonderful air——"
"An' the rattlesnakes, an' the alkali, an' the soap-holes, an' the quicksand, an' the cactus, an' the blisterin' sun, an' the lightnin', an' the rain, an' the snow, an' the ice, an' the sleet——"
The girl interrupted him with a laugh: "Were you born a pessimist, or has your pessimism been acquired?"
The Texan did not lift his eyes from the trail: "Earnt, I reckon, would be a better word. An' I don't know as it's pessimism, at that, to look in under the crust of your pie before you bite it. If you'd et flies for blueberries as long as I have, you'd——"
"I'd ask for flies, and then if there were any blueberries the surprise would be a pleasant one."
"Chances are, there wouldn't be enough berries to surprise you none pleasant. Anyhow, that would be kind of forcin' your luck. Follerin' the same line of reasoning a man ort to hunt out a cactus to set on so's he could be surprised pleasant if it turned out to be a Burbank one."
"You're hopeless," laughed the girl. "But look—the moonlight on the peaks! Isn't it wonderful! See how it distorts outlines, and throws a mysterious glamour over the dark patches of timber. Corot would have loved it."
The Texan shook his head: "No. It wouldn't have got to him. He couldn't never have got into the feel of stuff like that. Meakin did, and Remington, but it takes old Charlie Russell to pick it right out of the air an' slop it onto canvas."
Alice regarded the man in wonder. "You do love it!" she said. "Why should you be here if you didn't love it?"
"Bein' a cow-hand, it's easier to make a livin' here than in New York or Boston. I've never be'n there, but I judge that's the case."
"But you are a cow-hand from choice. You have an education and you could——"
"No. All the education I've got you could pile onto a dime, an' it wouldn't kill more'n a dozen men. Me an' the higher education flirted for a couple of years or so, way back yonder in Austin, but owin' to certain an' sundry eccentricities of mine that was frowned on by civilization, I took to the brush an' learnt the cow business. Then after a short but onmonotonous sojourn in Las Vegas, me an' Bat came north for our health. . . . Here's Johnson's horse pasture. We've got to slip through here an' past the home ranch in a quiet an' onobstrusive manner if we aim to preserve the continuity of Winthrup's spinal column."
"Can't we go around?" queried the girl.
"No. The coulee is fenced clean acrost an' way up to where even a goat couldn't edge past. We've got to slip through. Once we get past the big reservoir we're all right. I'll scout on ahead."
The cowboy swung to the ground and threw open the barbed-wire gate. "Keep straight on through, Bat, unless you hear from me. I'll be waitin' by the bunk-house. Chances are, them salamanders will all be poundin' their ear pretty heavy, bein' up all last night to the dance." He galloped away and the others followed at a walk. For an hour no one spoke.
"I thought that fence enclosed a pasture, not a county," growled
Endicott, as he clumsily shifted his weight to bear on a spot less sore.
"Oui, dat hoss pasture she 'bout seven mile long. Den we com' by de ranch, an' den de reservoir, an' de hay fences." The half-breed opened a gate and a short distance down the creek Alice made out the dark buildings of the ranch. As they drew nearer the girl felt her heart race madly, and the soft thud of the horse's feet on the sod sounded like the thunder of a cavalry charge. Grim and forbidding loomed the buildings. Not a light showed, and she pictured them peopled with lurking forms that waited to leap out as they passed and throttle the man who had rescued her from the brutish Purdy. She was sorry she had been nasty to Endicott. She wanted to tell him so, but it was too late. She thought of the revolver that Jennie had given her, and slipping her hand into her pocket she grasped it by the butt. At least, she could do for him what he had done for her. She could shoot the first man to lay hands on him.
Suddenly her heart stood still and her lips pressed tight. A rider emerged from the black shadow of the bunk-house.
"Hands up!" The girl's revolver was levelled at the man's head, and the next instant she heard the Texan laugh softly.
"Just point it the other way, please, if it's loaded. A fellow shot me with one of those once an' I had a headache all the rest of the evenin'." His horse nosed in beside hers. "It's just as I thought," he explained. "Everyone around the outfit's dead to the world. Bein' up all night dancin', an' most of the next day trailin' home, you couldn't get 'em up for a poker game—let alone hangin' a pilgrim."
Alice's fear vanished the moment the Texan appeared. His air of absolute self-confidence in his ability to handle a situation compelled the confidence of others.
"Aren't your nerves ever shaken? Aren't you ever afraid?" she asked.
Tex smiled: "Nerve ain't in not bein' afraid," he answered evasively, "but in not lettin' folks know when you're afraid."
Another gate was opened, and as they passed around the scrub-capped spur of a ridge that projected into the widening valley, the girl drew her horse up sharply and pointed ahead.
"Oh! A little lake!" she cried enthusiastically. "See how the moonlight shimmers on the tiny waves."
Heavy and low from the westward came an ominous growl of thunder.
"Yes. An' there'll be somethin' besides moonlight a-shimmerin' around here directly. That ain't exactly a lake. It's Johnson's irrigation reservoir. If we could get about ten miles below here before the storm hits, we can hole up in a rock cave 'til she blows over. The creek valley narrows down to a canyon where it cuts through the last ridge of mountains.
"Hit 'er up a little, Bat. We'll try an' make the canyon!"
A flash of lightning illumined the valley, and glancing upward, Alice saw that the mass of black clouds was almost overhead. The horses were forced into a run as the hills reverberated to the mighty roll of the thunder. They were following a well-defined bridle trail and scarcely slackened their pace as they splashed in and out of the water where the trail crossed and recrossed the creek. One lightning flash succeeded another with such rapidity that the little valley was illuminated almost to the brightness of day, and the thunder reverberated in one continuous roar.
With the buildings of Johnson's ranch left safely behind, Alice's concern for Endicott's well-being cooled perceptibly.
"He needn't to have been so hateful, just because I laughed at him," she thought, and winced at a lightning flash. Her lips pressed tighter. "I hate thunder-storms—to be out in them. I bet we'll all be soaked and—" There was a blinding flash of light, the whole valley seemed filled with a writhing, twisting rope of white fire, and the deafening roar of thunder that came simultaneously with the flash made the ground tremble. It was as though the world had exploded beneath their feet, and directly in the forefront the girl saw a tall dead cottonwood split in half and topple sidewise. And in the same instant she caught a glimpse of Endicott's face. It was very white. "He's afraid," she gritted, and at the thought her own fear vanished, and in its place came a wild spirit of exhilaration. This was life. Life in the raw of which she had read and dreamed but never before experienced. Her horse stopped abruptly. The Texan had dismounted and was pulling at the huge fragment of riven trunk that barred the trail.
"We'll have to lead 'em around through the brush, there. We can't budge this boy."
Scattering rain-drops fell—huge drops that landed with a thud and splashed broadly.
"Get out the slickers, Bat. Quick now, or we're in for a wettin'." As he spoke the man stepped to Alice's side, helped her to the ground, and loosened the pack-strings of her saddle. A moment later he held a huge oilskin of brilliant yellow, into the sleeves of which the girl thrust her arms. There was an odour as of burning sulphur and she sniffed the air as she buttoned the garment about her throat.
The Texan grinned: "Plenty close enough I'll say, when you get a whiff of the hell-fire. Better wait here 'til I find a way through the brush. An' keep out of reach of the horse's heels with that slicker on. You can't never trust a cayuse, 'specially when they can't more'n half see. They're liable to take a crack at you for luck."
Grasping his bridle reins the Texan disappeared and by the lightning flashes she could see him forcing his way through the thicket of willows. The scattering drops changed to a heavy downpour. The moonlight had long since been obliterated and the short intervals between the lightning flashes were spaces of intense blackness. A yellow-clad figure scrambled over the tree trunk and the cowboy took the bridle reins from her hand.
"You slip through here. I'll take your horse around."
On the other side, the cowboy assisted her to mount, and pulling his horse in beside hers, led off down the trail. The rain steadily increased in volume until the flashes of lightning showed only a grey wall of water, and the roar of it blended into the incessant roar of the thunder. The horses splashed into the creek and wallowed to their bellies in the swirling water.
The Texan leaned close and shouted to make himself heard.
"They don't make 'em any worse than this. I've be'n out in some considerable rainstorms, take it first an' last, but I never seen it come down solid before. A fish could swim anywheres through this."
"The creek is rising," answered the girl.
"Yes, an' we ain't goin' to cross it many more times. In the canyon she'll be belly-deep to a giraffe, an' we got to figure a way out of the coulee 'fore we get to it."
Alice was straining her ears to catch his words, when suddenly, above the sound of his voice, above the roar of the rain and the crash and roll of thunder, came another sound—a low, sullen growl—indefinable, ominous, terrible. The Texan, too, heard the sound and, jerking his horse to a standstill, sat listening. The sullen growl deepened into a loud rumble, indescribably horrible. Alice saw that the Texan's face was drawn into a tense, puzzled frown. A sudden fear gripped her heart. She leaned forward and the words fairly shrieked from her lips.
"It's the reservoir!"
The Texan whirled to face the others whose horses had crowded close and stood with drooping heads.
"The reservoir's let go!" he shouted, and pointed into the grey wall of water at right angles to their course. "Ride! Ride like hell an' save yourselves! I'll look after her!" The next instant he whirled his horse against the girl's.
"Ride straight ahead!" he roared. "Give him his head an' hang on! I'll stay at his flank, an' if you go down we'll take a chance together!"
Slipping the quirt from the horn of his saddle the cowboy brought it down across her horse's flank and the animal shot away straight into the opaque grey wall. Alice gave the horse a loose rein, set her lips, and gripped the horn of her saddle as the brute plunged on.
The valley was not wide. They had reached a point where its sides narrowed to form the mouth of the canyon. The pound of the horse's feet was lost in the titanic bombilation of the elements—the incessant crash and rumble of thunder and the ever increasing roar of rushing waters. At every jump the girl expected her frantic horse to go down, yet she was conscious of no feeling of fear. She glanced over her shoulder, but the terrific downpour acted as a curtain through which her eyes could not penetrate with the aid even of the most vivid flashes of lightning. Yet she knew that the Texan rode at her flank and that the others followed—Endicott and Bat, with his pack-horse close-snubbed to his saddle-horn. Suddenly the girl felt her horse labouring. His speed slackened perceptibly. As abruptly as it started the rain stopped; and she saw that water was swirling about his knees. Saw also by the aid of a lightning flash that throughout its width the valley was a black sea of tossing water. Before her the bank was very close and she jerked her horse toward a point where the perpendicular sides of a cutbank gave place to a narrow plane that slanted steeply upward. It seemed to the girl that the steep ascent would be impossible for the horses but it was the only chance. She glanced backward. The Texan was close behind, and following him were the others, their horses wallowing to their bellies. She had reached the hill and so steep was its pitch that her horse seemed perpendicular to the earth's surface. She leaned over the horn and twisted her fingers into his mane as the animal, his feet clear of the water, clawed and scrambled like a cat to gain the top. Another moment and he had pulled himself over the edge and the girl leaped to the ground. The Texan had not followed to the top but had halted his horse at the edge of the water that was mounting steadily higher. Bat swung in with his pack horse and with his quirt Tex forced them up the embankment. Endicott's horse was all but swimming. The water came above the man's knees as the animal fought for footing. The Texan leaned far out and, grasping the bridle, drew him in to the bank and quirted him to the top. Then, as the three watched, he headed his own horse upward. Scarcely had the animal come clear of the water when the eager watchers saw that something was wrong.
"De cinch—she bus'!" cried the half-breed excitedly. "Dat dam' Purdy cut de cinch an' A'm trade Tex mine for ride de outlaw, an' we trade back. Voila!" As the man talked, he jerked the coiled rope from his saddle and rushed to the edge. Alice, too, crowded to the bank, her hands tight clenched as she saw the man, the saddle gone from under him, clinging desperately to the bridle reins, his body awash in the black waters. Saw also that his weight on the horse's head was causing the animal to quit the straight climb and to plunge and turn erratically. It was evident that both horse and rider must be hurled into the flood. The fury of the storm had passed. The rumble of thunder was distant now. The flashes of lightning came at greater intervals, and with a pale glow instead of the dazzling brilliance of the nearer flashes. Through a great rift in the cloud-bank the moon showed, calm and serene above the mad rush of black waters.
For a single instant Alice gazed into the up-turned face of the Texan, and in that instant she saw his lips curve into the familiar cynical smile. Then he calmly let go the reins and slipped silently beneath the black water, as the released horse scrambled to the top. Beside her, Endicott uttered an oath and, tearing at the buttons of his slicker, dashed the garment to the ground. His coat followed, and stooping he tore the shoes from his feet and poised on the very edge of the flood. With a cry she sprang to his side and gripped his arm, but without a word he shook her roughly away, and as a dark form appeared momentarily upon the surface of the flood he plunged in.
Alice and Bat watched as the moonlight showed the man swimming with strong, sure strokes toward the spot where a moment before the dark form had appeared upon the surface. Then he dived, and the swift-rushing water purled and gurgled as it closed over the spot where he had been. Rope in hand, Bat, closely followed by the girl, ran along the edge of the bank, both straining their eyes for the first sign of movement upon the surface of the flood. Would he never come up? The slope up which the horses had scrambled steepened into a perpendicular cut-bank at no great distance below, and if the current bore the two men past that point the girl knew instinctively that rescue would be impossible and they would be swept into the vortex of the canyon.
There was a cry from Bat, and Alice, struggling to keep up, caught a blur of motion upon the surface some distance below. A few steps brought them opposite to the point, where, scarcely thirty feet from the bank, two forms were struggling violently. Suddenly an arm raised high, and a doubled fist crashed squarely against the jaw of a white, upturned face. The half-breed poised an instant and threw his rope. The wide loop fell true and a moment later Endicott succeeded in passing it under the arms of the unconscious Texan. Then the rope drew taut and the halfbreed braced to the pull as the men were forced shoreward by the current.
With a cry of relief, Alice rushed to the aid of the half-breed, and grasping the rope, threw her weight into the pull. But her relief was short-lived, for when the forms in the water touched shore it was to brush against the side of the cut-bank with tea feet of perpendicular wall above them. And worse than, that, unhardened to the wear of water, the bank was caving off in great chunks as the current gnawed at its base. A section weighing tons let go with a roar only a few yards below, and Bat and the girl worked as neither had ever worked before to tow their burden upstream to the sloping bank. But the force of the current and the conformation of the bank, which slanted outward at an angle that diminished the force of the pull by half, rendered their efforts in vain.
"You stan' back!" ordered Bat sharply, as a section of earth gave way almost beneath their feet, but the girl paid no attention, and the two redoubled their efforts.
In the water, Endicott took in the situation at a glance. He realized that the strain of the pull was more than the two could overcome. Realized also that each moment added to the Jeopardy of the half-breed and the girl. There was one chance—and only one. Relieved of his weight, the unresisting form of the Texan could be dragged to safety—and he would take that chance.
"Non! Non!" The words were fairly hurled from the half-breed's lips, as he seemed to divine what was passing in Endicott's mind. But Endicott gave no heed. Deliberately he let go the rope and the next moment was whirled from sight, straight toward the seething vortex of the canyon, where the moonlight revealed dimly in the distance only a wild rush of lashing waters and the thrashing limbs of uprooted trees.