He had just rounded the turn at the fork of the way, when somebody burst into it close at hand, coming through the short cut by Cawthorne's Gulch, and he thought he heard his name called.
To be taken now, to be dragged back to the jail, and, if not set 339 upon and lynched by the Beason-Hands following, to rot there till such time as they chose to try him, and possibly pay for his act of wild justice with his own life, this was a vista intolerable to Lance Cleaverage. Raising the weapon he fired at his pursuer.
"Oh, don't!" wailed the unseen; and the next moment Sylvane leaped from the mule he rode, ran forward and caught at Satan's mane, panting, "Lance—Lance! I was a-goin' to you as fast as I could. I struck down thar 'bout the time you must have left. I come Dry Valley way. Is it—have you—"
At the sound of Sylvane's voice, the heritage of Cain came home to Lance Cleaverage. A great upwelling black horror of himself flowed in on the fugitive. To what had he sunk! A murderer fleeing for his life, in his panic terror of pursuit menacing his own brother who came to help and succor!
"Oh, Buddy—Buddy—Buddy!" he cried, doubling forward over the pommel of his saddle, clutching Sylvane's shoulder, and closing his eyes to shut out the face of the dead man which swam before them in that quivering blue light.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FLIGHT.
THE dark hours of that January night saw the two brothers riding hard up into the mountains toward that tiny cleft in the peaks above East Caney where Lance now remembered the cave that he had once said should shelter him in case he ever killed a man. Sylvane had much of Lance's pride and courage, with little of his dash and perversity. Had the peril been his own, one might have guessed that he would meet it with the gentle stoicism old Kimbro showed. But that Buddy should be in peril, fleeing for his life! The boy's universe reeled around him, confusion reigned where he should have been efficient and orderly; and when they stopped at the cabin in the Gap for supplies, what with the agony of Lance's burn and the disarray of his brother's whole mentality, they made sad work of it. Something to eat, something to keep warm with, something to dress the hurt—these were the things the boy tried to remember, and forgot, and could not find, when he fancied the galloping hoofs of pursuers with every gust that shook the big trees in the dooryard.
He got for the dressing of the arm only a roll of new cloth, 341 rough and unsuitable; while a few extra garments, a blanket, meat, meal, salt, a cooking vessel and some white beans made up the rest of his packet. He came out at the last carrying Lance's banjo and put it on top of the supplies.