They saw the horsemen sit motionless for half a minute or so, then drop out of sight in a hollow. A mile farther along Charlie pointed out the location of the spring, and they parted. Rock jogged along, keeping to high ground and looking for small bands of horses. A half circle of the springs brought him on the bunch he wanted. A short, sharp dash cut seven or eight TL horses off from a band of broom-tail mares and colts, and he headed them homeward, thundering down a long, gentle slope toward the river. The work horses knew the way better than he, for they knew where they were headed, as mountain cattle know where the roundup grounds lie on the flat. They ran the bench for two miles and dropped into a swale that deepened and narrowed to a ravine scarred by spring torrents. Water holes dotted the dry course of its bed. Small flats spread here and there. Willows grew in clumps. Patches of high service-berry brush made thickets.
The sleek brutes ahead of him settled to a sedate trot. Rock jogged along at their heels, whistling.
Something that felt like the sting of a giant bee struck him on the head. His horse went down under him, as if pole-axed in midstride, throwing Rock clear. And, as he fell, he saw two wisps of powder smoke, blue on the edge of a thicket. His ear had heard two shots, so close together that they were like one.
He wasn’t hurt. A heavy mat of grass on turf softened the shock of his fall. He felt no wound beyond that sharp sting on his scalp. His wits worked as usual. He lay quite still where he fell, his eyes on the place where the smoke drifted lazily. His gun was in his hand, and he was searching for movement, although he lay like a man dead. He could hear the rasping death rattle in his horse’s nostrils. The beast sprawled on its side a few feet away, a convenient bulwark if he should need one. He noted thankfully that it lay left side up, the carbine scabbarded under its stirrup leather unharmed. The varnished stock pointed toward him invitingly. But he dared make no move toward it as yet.
Inert as a log, both hands clasped on the butt of his Colt, Rock waited for the ambush to show. He depended on that. They would want to be sure. Presently his stratagem and patience were rewarded. A hatless head took form in the edge of the brush a matter of thirty yards distant. Still Rock waited. Another face joined the second. After a time one extended a hand. Rock could see the gun muzzle trained on his prone body, as his own eye lined the foresight on a spot slightly below that extended arm.
Rock fired. That lurking figure in the brush must have pulled trigger in the same breath, for a bullet plowed dirt in the region of Rock’s breast. But the man spun and staggered clear of the brush, waving his arms, reeling. He was a fair mark now, and Rock fired again.
The other had vanished. Rock lay waiting. He was in the open, true, and the second man secure in tall thickets. But all about him stood heavy grass. He knew that very little of his body was visible, so long as he did not move.
“One bird in the hand and another in the brush,” he exulted.
Crimson trickled in a slow stream into one eye and spilled over his cheek. He wiped it away. That first shot had grazed his scalp. That troubled him very little. That second assassin, still lurking in the thicket, troubled him much more. And at that instant he heard the quick drum of hoofs.