"Here they are. Right ahead here," continued Prince.
Followed a moment of suspense, then came the crashing of brush as Clanton moved after him.
"S-sh! Ride softly, Jim. We don't want 'em to hear us an' get away."
"Tha's right. Tha's sure right. You said somethin' then, Billie. But they'll not get away. Haven't I slept on their trail four years? They're mine at last."
Prince was drawing him farther from the road. But the danger was not yet over. As the posse passed, some member of it might hear them, or young Clanton might hear it and gallop out to the road under the impression he was going to meet Dave Roush. Billie twisted in and out of the brush, never for an instant letting his friend pull up. On a moving horse one cannot hear so distinctly as on one standing still.
At last Billie began to breathe more easily. The pursuers must have passed before this. He could give his attention to the sick man.
Jim was clutching desperately to the saddle-horn. The fever was gaining on him and the delirium worse. He talked incessantly, sometimes incoherently. From one subject to another he went, but always he came back to Dave Roush and his brother. He dared them to stand up and fight. He called on them to stop running, to wait for him. Then he trailed off into a string of epithets usually ending in sobs of rage.
The sickness of the young man tore the heart of his companion. Every instinct of kindness urged him to stop, make up a bed for the wounded boy, and let him rest from the agony of travel. But he dared not stop yet. He had to keep going till they reached a place of temporary safety.
With artful promises of immediate vengeance upon his enemies, by means of taunts at him as a quitter, through urgent proddings that reached momentarily the diseased mind, Prince kept him moving through the brush. The sweat stood out on the white face of the young fellow shining ghastly in the moonlight.
After what seemed an interminable time they could see from a mesa the lights of Los Portales. Billie left the town well to his right, skirted the pastures on the outskirts, and struck the river four miles farther down.