Nipple Peaks he knew by sight, two high mounds of bare granite above the timber-line, barring the way to a jumbled country of peaks and ravines and cross cañons among which lay Plimsoll's Hideout. Spur Rock he knew only by rumor. That there was a pass between the peaks he did not doubt. And he rode to meet Plimsoll coming down out of it. To have returned to the Hideout and attempted to follow a rock trail by moonlight, despite its brilliance, would have been sheer folly. Plimsoll had from three to four hours' start, he figured. And he calculated that, with luck, with common luck and justice, he would pick him up before he reached the base of the mountain, before he got into the timber. If not, sooner or later he would cut Plimsoll's sign and follow it to the end.
As he rode over the finny ridge of Elk Mountain and saw the Nipple Peaks gleaming above the black pines across the valley, with Elk River gleaming in the middle, he realized that he had said nothing to Molly of Keith, of the shutting down of the mine and his own action in her name. While she had asked nothing of young Donald. For the time it had been as if the rest of the world had been fenced off from them and their own intimate affairs.
He compressed his knees and the mare answered in a lope that stretched into a gallop, fast and faster as she reached the levels and sped toward Elk River. Sandy was not going to waste time looking for a ford. The mare could swim. The moon, sloping down toward the west, still above the range, helped by the big white stars, made the valley bright almost as day. He scanned the mountain toward the peaks, passed over the dark impenetrable pines, surveyed the stretch of gently rising ground between the Elk and the trees and shifted his guns in their scabbards. His rifle he had left with Sam. Either Plimsoll had not passed the peaks, was in the woods, or he had come and gone. Something told Sandy this last had not occurred. Travel beyond the peaks must have been hard and slow and roundabout for Plimsoll while he had tangented fast for the cut-off.
The mare took the cold river water about her fetlocks with a little shiver, wading in to the girths, sliding to a deep pool where she had to swim a few strokes before she found gravel under her hoofs and scrambled out. Suddenly, while Sandy hesitated how best to arrange his patrol, a horse came floundering out of the pines less than a quarter of a mile away, a black horse, shining with sweat, tired to its limit, staggering in its stride, the rider hunched in the saddle more like a sack of meal than a man.
Before Sandy could turn the mare toward them three riders burst from the trees like bolts from a crossbow, spurring their mounts, the two in the lead swinging lariats. They divided, one to either side of the foundering black stallion, one at the rear, gaining, angling in. The ropes slithered out, the loops seemed to hang like suspended rings of wire for a second before they settled down, fair and true, about the neck and shoulders of the black's rider. They tightened, the lariats snubbed to the saddle horns, the horses sliding with flattened pasterns. The black lunging on, pitched forward as it was relieved of a sudden weight and its rider jerked hideously from the saddle, hands clawing at the ropes that choked his gullet, wrenching, sinking deep, shutting off air and light with a horrid taste of blood and the noise of thundering waters.
The ropers wheeled their mounts and galloped back toward the woods, the limp body of their victim dragging, bouncing over the ground. The third rode to meet Sandy. It was Brandon. He hailed Sandy with surprise.
"How'd you happen here this time of night, Bourke? Not looking for me?"
"No. I was looking for the man you've just caught. I was about a minute too late."
Brandon glanced curiously at Sandy, caught by the grim note in his voice. But he made no comment.
"Sorry if I spoiled your private vendetta, Bourke. You can have him, what's left of him, if you want. We were going to swing him from a tree with a card on his chest presenting him to Hereford County, with our compliments. As it is, Bourke, I'd be relieved if you'd keep out of this entirely. Even forgetting you'd met us. We're within our rights, but we've done some cleaning up to-night that we might have to explain if we stayed too long in the state. We got the goods on Plimsoll; one of his men whose girl Plimsoll had stolen helped us to pin them on him. We met him at Hereford. I'm going to send the facts and proofs to your authorities. They may not approve of lynch law these days, but they wouldn't act—and we did. I don't fancy they'll bother us any. He wasn't worth the ropes he spoiled. Just as well you kept out of the mix-up."