The big runner was standing almost rigidly in the dark, as Elbert made a quick tie of the two shortened leather ends, his ears still straining for a sound from the mare. He mounted, but had difficulty in turning back toward the alders. The gelding fought the bit, tossing his head. The man’s unspurred heel knocked his ribs, but the runner snorted like a crazed colt at this, standing straight up, and Bart’s warning about the spur flashed back. Elbert, getting control again, snatched off a small branch as he brushed the foliage at the road-side, and the sorrel started forward at a stiff-legged, unwilling trot, still unruly as he neared the alders.
The mare was gone. Holding to the shortened bridle-rein, Elbert was on his knees, lighting matches—an ashen smile on his lips. Yes, he actually smiled at himself now—so miserably hopeless a few minutes before, just at the thought of waiting days. Something to be dismal about now.
Countless horse-tracks among the alders, conveying nothing to his eyes. Passing rurales had possibly heard the horses, and tried to take them. Possibly one of the police had mounted the sorrel and attempted to force him with a spur. That might account for old Mallet-head breaking loose.
Elbert rode slowly on toward Fonseca, head bowed. Yes, they had given him something to be dismal about all right. What hope—if they had taken her into town.
He couldn’t brace into Fonseca and attack the town single-handed. Still he kept on, until—it was almost a sob that surged up in his throat—the sound of a nicker—far to the right! His hand darted forward to the muzzle of the sorrel to shut off possible answer. No need of that. The big gelding was unconcerned about that far-off sound.
Mamie—letting him know! He could tell that call of hers in the midst of a herd of horses; and the rurales or whoever had her, were not pushing on to Fonseca, but eastward toward the mountains. ‘I’m coming!’ he muttered. He flicked his branch on the sorrel’s flanks.
Minutes afterward, the call again; and presently from over the eastern mountains, appeared the moon, a shaving less full than last night.
Last night—that moon from the cell of Arecibo—far-off as childhood.
Two hours, at least, of fierce strain—following those whom he supposed were looking for him; finally a faint haze of firelight over the rim of a hill just ahead—the mysterious party having come to a halt. If they were rurales, why hadn’t they gone to Fonseca—why this halt in the open? He was close as he dared to be with the sorrel. Even now, the big stake-horse might undertake to announce his presence and need of forage. Elbert turned him back to a live-oak scrub, made him fast, and retraced his way up the slope again, struggling with weariness and many fears. The moon was now well clear of the eastern ridges.
On top, he gradually discerned two figures stretched out in the firelight below—in ordinary Mexican garb, not in uniform of rurales. Moving nearer, he presently made out Mamie, still saddled, a third Mexican sitting on the ground at her head. Seconds crawled by, as he waited breathlessly, with a vague hope that this third one might doze, but nothing of the kind. Instead, the Mexican now rose, leading his charge to a low tree clump, where other horses were faintly to be discerned.