Dud felt a twinge of conscience. There was nothing he could do to help the man hemmed in on the riverbank, but it hurt him to lie there without attempting aid. The ranger making the lone fight might be Bob Dillon, poor Bob who had to whip his courage to keep himself from playing the weakling. Dud hoped not. He did not like to think of his riding mate in such desperate straits with no hope of escape.
The battle on the ridge had begun again. Hollister and Reeves decided to try to rejoin their friends. From the north end of the willows they crept into a small draw that led away from the river toward the hills beyond the mesa. Both of them were experienced plainsmen. They knew how to make the most of such cover as there was. As they moved through the sage, behind hillocks and along washes, they detoured to put as much distance as possible between them and the Utes at the edge of the bench.
But the last hundred yards had to be taken in the open. They did it under fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent bullet had struck him in the fleshy part of the lower leg.
Hawks let out a cowboy yell at sight of them, jumped up, and pulled Dud down beside him among the boulders.
“Never expected to see you lads again alive an’ kickin’ after you an’ the Utes started that footrace. I’ll bet neither one of you throwed down on yoreself when you was headin’ for the willows. Gee, I’m plumb glad to see you.”
“We’re right glad to be here, Buck,” acknowledged Dud. “What’s new?”
“We got these birds goin’, looks like. In about an hour now we’re allowin’ to hop down into the gulch real sudden an’ give ’em merry hell.”
Dud reported to Harshaw. The cattleman dropped a hand on his rider’s shoulder with a touch of affection. He was very fond of the gay young fellow.
“Thought they’d bumped you off, boy. Heap much glad to see you. What do you know?”
“I reckon nothing that you don’t. There was firin’ down by the river. Looks like they found one o’ the boys who went over the bluff.”