The rider gave no thought to ambush. There was a time for everything, but hesitation or caution would not claim its turn until the ride was done. If an ambush lay ahead, what mattered it? Others were coming along that trail, and only one need survive. The picture which he carried in his brain was not one from which counselings of safety could arise. Its message was to ride, ride, ride; and kill, kill, kill; and it turned the thin-lipped, narrow-lidded rider into an agent of Death, merciless and untiring. The ages rolled back from around his soul and stripped it of the last, pulsating film of civilization's veneer. No gray wolf ever ran a trail, no wolverine hunted in its northern fastness that was more coldly savage or cruel than this man whose grim confidence gave no thought of failure. Mile after mile he rode, motionless in the saddle save for the rhythmic rise and swing of a saddle poise superb. Neither to right nor left he looked, nor back where the billowing dust swirled suddenly high to roll spreading over the drab earth, slowly settling. Straight ahead he set his gaze, to the fartherest new-made mark on the winding, twisting trail, a trail which twisted and wound as though vainly seeking a place to hide until that flying Death were past. A high ridge of limestone poured into view and the swinging black was pulled to a walk, for a breathing spell wise in its length, and canny in its shortness. Then up slowly and off again on her far-reaching stride, the noonday sun blazing down unheeded.
To the west the ribbon-like trail was widening. Behind Johnny it was bigger by one more strand; behind Slim, a furnace of rage, was another strand; Tom Wilkes, grimly determined, made another; half a mile behind him rocked Cimarron, vengeful and silent, and added the sixth. Certain memories, returning to the segundo, caused him to ride off and make a trail of his own, confident that it would be a chord in a great arc and lead him past his two ranch mates. There was a certain pass far to the northeast which he vaguely coupled to the Bar H foreman, and with three men ahead of him to follow the certainty of the tell-tale trail, he could afford to gamble. Two hours later Slim became indignant and wondered if Cimarron's black-and-white had grown wings, for his segundo's dust did not suit his mouth and eyes.
"He can do it with me," muttered Slim, "but that Pepper hoss won't be seen by any of us till she stops. I hope Nelson ain't killin' her."
The Pepper horse was neither stopping nor being killed. She skimmed along with no faltering in her stride as though she remembered a day in a quicksand. There was a debt to be paid, and if heart held out and the heaving sides did not prove false to her thoroughbred courage, the lengthening shadows would see it canceled before they became lost in the day's deepening twilight. Down a narrow valley she sped, the hills rolling the tattoo of her drumming hoofs as though they liked the sound and were reluctant to let it die. Taking a brook at a bound and scorning her rising thirst, she swirled around a sharp bend, and twitched her ears suddenly forward, the quick pressure of her rider's knees telling her that he had seen.
Johnny slipped his Sharp's from its long sheath and, holding it at the ready, stood up in his stirrups, his horse somewhere finding a reserve power that fairly hurled her forward, the trim black legs whirring under her like flashing spokes of jet. The rider's lids narrowed to thin slits and the tight-pressed lips pressed tighter. Yard after yard he gained, second after second. The half mile became a quarter, steadily lessened and then, Pepper pounding over a stretch of rocky ground where the hammering of her hoofs rang out loudly, there was a quick turning in the saddles ahead, and a roar from the saddle behind, a ragged cloud of acrid smoke tearing itself to filmy bits and blending with the suddenly tenuous dust cloud in the rear.
Big Tom cursed in sudden rage and whirled his horse behind Margaret's, his rifle spitting past her shoulder. His shelter bolted from in front of him as a Sharp's Special stung the SV horse, its rider barely able to keep her seat during the convulsive lunge. Big Tom leaped down behind his mount and rested the gun across the saddle. Before he could pull the trigger another Special passed through the animal's abdomen and, its force spent, struck his belt and doubled him up, gasping for breath as the agonized animal leaped forward. The cantle of the saddle, striking the barrel of the Winchester, tore the weapon from its owner's hands and left him, slowly straightening up, with a Colt for his only defense.
Coming at him like a skimming swallow sped Pepper, her rider, having slipped the rifle back into its long sheath, standing erect in the stirrups, each hand holding a Colt. For a moment they were held aloft and then as the Bar H foreman drew his six-gun they chopped down and poured jets of flame and puffs of smoke over Pepper's head. The foreman twisted, fired aimlessly, lurched, fired again, and plunged forward, face down on the sand. Johnny slid his guns back into their holsters and raced for Margaret, who was fighting a pain-crazed horse.
Slim and Cimarron, neck and neck now, jumped the brook, sped along the little valley, keyed to fighting pitch by the sound of distant shots, and flashed around the bend, where they pulled up sharply and looked across the level pasture.
"H—l!" growled Cimarron. "I thought we was ridin' to a lynchin'! This here looks more like a weddin'. Get back, around that bend, you fool!"
"It shore does," said Slim, grinning. "A weddin', huh? Well, then, I says he's still a-rollin'."