Then from the gloom trotted a riderless pony, calling again and again as it approached them. A flash enabled Limber's keen eyes to recognize Fox. With a little nicker of delight, it trotted to Peanut's side and stood rubbing its nose against the other pony's shoulder. Limber saw a weather-beaten saddle and new saddlebags on Fox's back, while a broken halter-rope dangled from the animal's neck. He knew the horse had broken away from Glendon, and was probably making its way back to the Circle Cross, the only home it had ever known. If so, Glendon would follow until he caught it, for he would need the extra horse in his long flight.
Limber hastily tied the broken halter-rope to the horn of Peanut's saddle, and left the two animals standing in the centre of the road as a decoy, while he crawled to a projecting clump of brush and slowly wormed his way parallel to the road. He was following Apache tactics, now. A prolonged flash of quivering, dazzling light, and Limber's half-blinded eyes scanned the brush and trees. Then the rifle leaped to his shoulder and his finger rested on the trigger.
Down the road he had seen Glendon. At the same time he knew that Glendon had seen him. Back into the brush he slipped lying flat on his face and writhing cautiously forward. There would be no time for a second shot—Glendon was waiting, too. How close was he, now? Inch by inch Limber dragged himself. Somewhere in the night, another man was crawling toward him, gun in hand—The man who had left the marks of his fingers on a woman's throat. God! Would there be no flash of lightning now that he needed just one more.
It came, as though in answer to his prayer. Dazzling, blinding and with frightful crash as though the whole world had fallen into space and crushed another world to atoms. A sharp tingling pain shot through Limber's muscles, his gun dropped from his hand and exploded; he wondered if Glendon had hit him, but it was rain, not blood that soaked his sleeve.
He gripped his gun and threw another cartridge into place. Once more he began creeping and waiting. When another flash came, the cowboy lowered his gun, and rose to his feet. At the side of the road ahead of him was an uprooted cottonwood tree. Under it lay a horse and a man.
Uncertain whether the man was dead or merely stunned, Limber crouched warily in the brush, waiting a tell-tale movement. But the horse and man did not stir.
Then the cowboy approached and looked down in the fitful glare of the flashes, and saw an immovable figure—face distorted with agony—open eyes staring unseeing into the storm—clothes across a charred breast—an odour of burnt flesh and singed hair—the body of a dead horse.
Limber gazed down at the man, his mind filled with conflicting emotions. He had intended killing Glendon as he would have killed a mad coyote or a rattlesnake, and he would have felt no regret; but, now—
He raised the dripping hat from his head. Not because of the broken thing that lay at his feet, but in recognition of something higher and more incomprehensible which rules the Universe—with its three unfathomable mysteries, Life, Death and Eternity.
Replacing his hat, Limber made his way back to the horses and slipped the Winchester into the scabbard which hung from Peanut's saddle.