"So?" objected Roche. "You refuse me even de satisfaction for shoot myself? You leave me here, handcuffed, for de flames?" He made a step forward. "Pardon," he said, "but will you not do me de favour for shoot me yourself? It is more queek, less 'orrible. And for your revenge it is all de same. I die anyway. What?"
Silk was not listening to him. He glanced round apprehensively as a shower of black dust and smouldering grass blades fell from the midst of the heavy pall of rolling smoke. Then he stretched out his hands and caught hold of his prisoner in his strong arms, lifted him bodily, and flung him across the mare's back, holding him there while he seized the reins, raised a foot to the stirrup, and leapt up behind him.
"Go!" he cried, when his seat was secure. "Go, my beauty!"
With a snort and a shake of her mane the mare went forward, dashed up the slope, gained the level, and plunged off with a long, racing stride to mingle with the panic-stricken crowd of bellowing, screeching creatures of the prairie in the mad stampede for escape.
Mile after mile she galloped with her double burden, making never a pause or a break, while the fire, with its terrible crackle and moaning, came closer and closer, and the blinding, choking reek swept by in a thickening cloud.
Silk had no need to use spur or reins. He let her go her own instinctive way, and only strove to keep his awkward seat in the saddle and to hold grimly, desperately to the man lying helpless across his knees. Once only he tightened the reins to check the mare's headlong flight as they came to the brink of a creek. Then, with coaxing, affectionate words, he bade her go warily, guiding her through the shallows, where a struggling crowd of coyotes, rabbits, and prairie dogs wallowed or swam or sank exhausted.
At the farther side of the sluggish stream Silk dismounted, trusting that the fire would not yet leap the water.
"Reckon we can take breath for a while," he said to his moaning prisoner. "Say, I'll just fix you in a more comfortable position and give you a drink. Guess you're needing it. I'd take the handcuffs off you, only I'm afraid you can hardly be trusted, even now. What do you say?"
As he brought a hatful of water and held it up, the half-breed dipped his face in it, and then looked down at him appealingly.
"Sergeant," he pleaded, leaning over and holding out his swollen hands and exhibiting the bruised wrists, "you tek dem off. You 'ave pity, eh?"