He turned off the trail he was on and rode over a ridge into a wide ravine. Here he turned his horse loose to graze and spent the time until sundown. Then he returned to his station, tied his horse among the trees, inspected the river trail to make sure no one had passed since he had been there last, and took up his vigil on the ridge, which was more or less open, with scanty tree growth. The twilight played with all colors of the rainbow on the weird, tumbled land about him, then was swallowed by the black velvet cloak of night. The stars broke forth in clusters and a new moon slipped up out of the east, a gleaming, celestial bangle. The night wind whispered inquiringly among the leaves.
Bannister waited for what seemed hours and hours, and finally his sixth sense—the intuition of the man of the open—was aroused to a premonition of impending danger. He looked about at the dim reaches of the breaks, down at the trail, lighted somewhat by the sheen of the moonlight on the river. An owl hooted and his hand darted to his gun. He swore softly under his breath. What was it? He was not a nervous man. Yet there was the feeling—that feeling of a presence near. He couldn’t shake it off. It was there. The feeling . . .
He saw its shadow before he could dodge. The rope dropped over his shoulders, tightened in the instant he pulled his gun. He was jerked backward, dragged. But as the rope became taut, he fired in the direction it led. Three times his gun blazed, for his right forearm was free. The rope suddenly loosened and he leaped to his feet, shaking it free. Red flame streaked across the shadows under the trees to his left. Bannister now was under a stunted pine. He fired three more shots in the direction from whence the flashes had come and dropped to the ground to reload his gun.
Silence.
Bannister wriggled away from his position. He could hear nothing. How they had discovered he was on the ridge, he did not know, but he surmised that there had been a lookout somewhere in the vicinity or that he had been seen by accident, perhaps from across the river. He lay still for some time. Then he rose slowly to one knee, gun in hand. The wind whispered; the owl voiced its complaint. Bannister rose to his feet. There was a burst of fire and the heavens crashed upon him. He stumbled forward into black oblivion.
Chapter Twenty
In his delirious sleep, Bannister was riding like mad—riding like mad from white specters that pursued him on great blue horses. The smell of smoke was in the air; there was fire somewhere. He could not seem to make his feet move to spur his mount to greater exertion. He looked behind and his pursuers had changed to little brown men with peaked caps like those of a chimney sweep. Funny, he thought. Then his horse stumbled and he went whirling through the air. They were upon him in a minute—scores of them. The white heat of a branding iron dazzled his eyes. It came down upon his head and he shrieked with pain. It came down again . . . again. He came out of it with a jerk—conscious.
His first sensation was that of a burning pain on the left side of the head. It was as if a red-hot poker was being drawn backward and forward, relentlessly, just above his left ear. He squirmed with the torture of it. He started to put his hand to his head but couldn’t move it. Vaguely he realized that he was bound hand and foot. Then the events preceding that burst of flame and his loss of consciousness came back to him. He opened his eyes.
At first he could see nothing. Then, twisting his aching head a bit, he saw a patch of light—a square patch, such as would be made by a window. He was lying on something soft—a bunk. He realized he was in a cabin. He cried aloud several times but received no answer. He groaned with the excruciating pain. His mouth and tongue and lips were dry; his whole being cried for water. He shouted and twisted and turned in the bunk until a sharp pain, like the stab of a knife, stopped him with a moan. Then he was off again. Riding—riding—riding. Florence Marble was with him. She disappeared and Howard Marble was with him. Green and yellow lights broke forth in wreathed clusters and in the center were the leering faces of Cromer and Le Beck. A great, black cloud came down and he plowed into it, choking . . . choking.
When he again opened his eyes, it was daylight. He stared up at the rafters. Then he twisted his head again, wincing with the fire above his left ear. Yes, he was in a cabin. There was a table under one of the windows, a few empty shelves, an old, rusty stove, a bench. It somehow had a familiar look. He racked his aching brain, and then he had it. He was in the cabin behind the leaning cottonwood, the cabin Howard had shown him the day they had gone into the badlands together. In the old rustler’s cabin, wounded, bound hand and foot—a prisoner.
He clenched his teeth against the agonizing pain in his head, twisted and squirmed and strained at his bonds with every iota of his strength, but it was no use. Whoever had bound him had been no amateur. The job had been well done. He desisted in his efforts, and tried to wet his lips with a dry tongue.
“Water,” he croaked, looking at the closed door. Could any one be out there? “Water! Water!” It was a torment to breathe.
Once more he drifted off into delirium, and this time he was back in another country where there were pepper trees and mesquite and dust—always dust. He was riding again, shooting over his shoulder, racing for the hills that stood out in jagged purple outlines like the pieces of a purple puzzle. A buzzard soared overhead. He yelled to it and it swooped down, its great beak plunging into his head.
He awoke again with the pain. It was a steady, deep, aching pain now. He knew its portent. That horrible burst of flame on the ridge had sent a bullet into his head. They had seen him and stolen upon him from behind. There must have been more than one of them. He had been a fool to get up from the ground. His work for nothing. They had him now—the rustlers, of course.
The ripple of water came to his ears, and suddenly he was beside a running stream. He lay down upon his stomach and buried his face in its cool depths. But he couldn’t swallow. There it was, the water, but he couldn’t drink it. He crawled into it and splashed about. But he couldn’t swallow . . .
The sunlight was streaming into the cabin and his eyes were wide open. How long would they leave him here? Perhaps they didn’t intend to come back. He wouldn’t mind dying if he could only quench his thirst. He strained futilely at his bonds with diminishing strength.
“Water!” he shrieked in a cracked voice. “Water!” He felt a madness creeping over him.
And then, against the fulgent rays of the sun in a window, he saw a shadow—a head and shoulders. He cried out inarticulately. There came a crash at the window and the sash flew inward as glass splintered and rained on the table. The head and shoulders came through with a strong body after them.
“Howard!” croaked the man on the bunk.
In a jiffy Howard Marble had out his knife and was cutting the ropes that bound Bannister.
“Lucky I came this way,” he was saying. “Florence told me you’d gone to the badlands, and, when you didn’t come home last night, I came to look for you. I cut through here, saw the door padlocked, and stopped because I thought it was strange. Then I heard you cry out. Now . . . sit up, Bannister.”
He helped Bannister, who was steadily growing weaker, to sit up on the edge of the bunk.
“Water,” Bannister mumbled.
“Right away,” said Howard. He hurried to the spring, where there was a drinking can, filled it with the cold water, and brought it back.
“Not too much at a time,” he warned. “Suffering Jupiter, man, you’re hit.”
He didn’t wait for further words. Tearing the blue bandanna from about his neck, he ran to the spring and soaked it, together with his pocket handkerchief. Then he bathed the ugly wound on Bannister’s head, placed the dripping white handkerchief over it and bound it in place with the bandanna.
“Come on,” he said, “we’re getting home quick as we can.”
Bannister’s horse, gun, and hat were missing. Howard didn’t ask for explanations. He surmised what had happened, for he knew the nature of the mission upon which Bannister had been bent. He helped him into the saddle on his own horse and cli
mbed up behind him. They proceeded along the trail and out upon the plain from behind the leaning cottonwood. Then they turned west toward the ranch.
Bannister was beginning to sway and mutter incoherently. Howard’s strength was easily equal to the demand made upon it. He held Bannister securely in the saddle and spurred his horse into a gentle lope. But he soon checked the animal to a fast walk as Bannister began to rave in the throes of delirium. It took strength to hold him then.
They came finally to the pastures and fields, then the windbreak of cottonwoods and the road to the yard. Florence was at her flower beds and saw them as soon as they broke through the trees. With a little cry she came running as Howard drew up at the porch.
“Bannister’s hit,” said Howard crisply. “Call Jeb. We must get him upstairs to bed.”
Florence’s face had gone white. For the space of a few moments she faltered. Then she was suddenly calm and, running toward the bunkhouse, called Jeb. He came quickly and they got Bannister out of the saddle and up the stairs to a front room. Howard undressed him and got him into bed.
Then Florence and Martha began to work over him, cleansing the wound and bandaging it with clean, cool strips. He moaned and muttered in his delirium as he burned with fever.
“I’m going for the company doctor,” Howard announced, “an’ I’m going like all hell!”
In a few minutes he was flying northward on a fresh mount, one of the fastest horses on the ranch. He passed the north range herd, crossed the line, and dashed between the little white stakes on the project. In record time he reached the tents and then the dusty street. He pulled up where some men were standing.
“Where’s the doctor?” he called.
“Over there in the hospital tent,” said one of the men, pointing to a tent of brown canvas.
Howard was there in a twinkling. Inside there was no doubt as to who was the doctor. Howard approached the man in the white coat with the Vandyke beard.
“Doctor,” he said breathlessly, “there’s a man badly hurt down at the Half Diamond. Can you come down right away?”
“Well, very soon,” was the answer, “but I have to have an order from Mister Cromer in the meantime.”
“I’ll get it,” snapped Howard, and he was out of the tent.
He found Cromer in his office. “There’s a man badly hurt down at the ranch,” he told the irrigation manager, “an’ we’d like to have your doctor come an’ look after him.”
“Who’s hurt?” Cromer asked calmly.
“Bannister,” Howard replied. “Shot in the head, I guess.”
“Well,” said Cromer, “according to our insurance arrangement, our doctor isn’t supposed to leave the project.”
“What!” cried Howard. “With a man maybe dying within reach?”
“He isn’t here now, anyway,” said Cromer with a wry smile.
“He’s in the hospital tent,” Howard flashed, “I just saw him. He said he could come soon, but he had to have an order from you to go.”
Cromer’s face darkened. “Oh, he said that, did he? So he’s down in the hospital tent. Well, I’ll go down and see him shortly and see what we can do. It’s against regulations . . .”
“You’re a white-livered rat if one ever lived!” shouted Howard, and he called Cromer a name that caused the man’s teeth to clamp shut.
Fire was raging in Howard’s eyes. He started for the door. Then he whirled. “You don’t intend to send him,” he said through his teeth. He leaped for the desk, pulling his gun, and struck Cromer squarely between the eyes with the heavy barrel. Then he was out of the office, on his horse, and streaking past tents and piles of supplies for the road to Prairie City.
No horse could have caught him on that ride. He reached Prairie City shortly after noon and turned the animal over to the liveryman.
“Save him if you can,” were his instructions, and he ran for the doctor’s office.
Dr. Holmes had attended the Marbles ever since he had come to Prairie City. He had been a friend of Florence Marble’s father. He was putting on his hat and getting his medicine bag and instruments before Howard finished explaining the purpose of his errand.
Howard left his exhausted mount and rode back to the ranch with Dr. Holmes in the latter’s buckboard behind a pair of fast-stepping grays. On the way he told the doctor about his experience with Cromer.
“They offered me that place up there,” said the doctor dryly, “at good money. So much a head per month for the workers and a bonus. But I couldn’t see how I could leave my regular practice.”
It was the doctor’s way of expressing his loyalty to his old patients.
Old Jeb took the team when they arrived at the ranch and Dr. Holmes and Howard hurried into the house. Florence Marble’s eyes lighted with pleasure when she saw the elderly physician.
“But I thought you were going for the company doctor,” she said to Howard as they followed Dr. Holmes up the stairs.
“Yeah? Well, so I did, and that rat of a Cromer wouldn’t let him come,” said Howard scornfully.
“He . . . what?” Florence stopped and stared at Howard, her face gone white.
“Just what I said,” Howard told her grimly. “An’ that settles his hash with me for all time an’ then some.”
Florence pressed her lips into a fine white line as she went on up the stairs.
Dr. Holmes removed his coat and got busy at once. Bannister was raving in acute delirium. He had a raging fever. The doctor examined the wound on Bannister’s head and proceeded to dress it property.
“I tell you I am The Maverick!” Bannister cried shrilly. “Tell ’em all. What the hell do I care. Take your hand away from that bridle or I’ll fill your heart with lead!” He lapsed into coma.
Florence Marble stood, white-faced, her hands crossed on her breast.
Dr. Holmes stepped back from the bed. “That bullet made a pretty deep groove in a bad place,” he said soberly. “When he comes out of this, he’ll have a mind, or . . . he won’t.” Florence gave a queer little cry, and he looked at her quickly. “Come, I must give you something,” he said gruffly, “you look as if you’d faint any minute.”
He administered a strong sleeping potion and had Martha lead her away to lie down. He ordered Howard out. Then he turned to his medicine vials and began the long, wearisome fight for Bannister’s life—and reason.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dusk had fallen with the blue velvet skirts of the night flung over the land, when a rider dashed out of the whispering cottonwoods and into the yard by the porch. He dismounted hurriedly, disengaged the handle of a black case from his saddle horn, and walked briskly up the steps. Howard and Florence came out of the dining room to the front door.
“I’m Doctor Reynolds from Marble,” said the visitor, as Howard recognized him. “Mister Cromer sent me down. I couldn’t come sooner, as I had a minor operation up there that proved troublesome.”
“That’s a first-class lie,” said Howard. “You go back and tell Cromer to go to blazes. He can’t save his face this late.”
“Howard.” It was Florence who spoke. She went out on the porch. “We don’t need you now,” she said. “We have our regular doctor from Prairie City. You can tell Mister Cromer I’m sorry to have bothered him.”
The doctor bowed. “I hope you understand my position, ma’am,” he said courteously. “I am held strictly to orders according to my contract. Mister Cromer . . . ah . . . seemed very much put out.”
“I should think he would be,” Howard stormed. “Tell him he’s worn out his welcome on this ranch.”
Again Florence admonished the youth. Then to the doctor: “I understand your position. The only reason Howard had in going up there was that he thought he could perhaps save some time. Mister Bannister is in a critical condition.”
“Well, since I can’t be of service,” said the doctor, “I’ll be going back.” He lifted his hat and went down the steps.
Later that night Cromer listened to hi
s report in silence, merely nodding his head and waving him away when he had finished. Alone, Cromer swore roundly. He had missed a chance that morning to redeem himself, and his hatred of Bannister had caused him to throw it away. Now all was lost so far as the Half Diamond and its fair owner was concerned. There was but one thought that brought any consolation. Bannister’s condition was critical, Florence Marble had said. He might die, then. Cromer wished with all his heart and soul that he would.
Meanwhile the nerve tension of those at the Marble ranch house was almost at the breaking point. Dr. Holmes was maintaining a constant vigil at the bedside. Martha was officiating as nurse. Florence and Howard were in the living room. Strong as had been the potion the doctor had given her, it would not put the girl to sleep. He dared not give her more.
“But who did it?” she kept asking Howard.
“For the last time, Flo,” said the boy impatiently, “I don’t know. He had no chance to tell me how, where, or when it happened. He went down there looking for trace of the rustlers. Evidently he met up with some of them and the shooting started. They knocked him down with a bullet, tied him up, and put him in that cabin. Now you know as much as I do.”
“Howard, go send Jeb to the Dome for Manley,” she ordered. “I’d send you, but I want you here.”
The boy went out, and Florence followed him, to walk on the grass in the lower yard. It was such a night as only mid-June can bring to the semi-altitudes. The air was soft and sweet, gently stirring. Myriads of stars hung low in the great arch of the sky and the new moon tipped saucily in the east.
Florence could not get out of her head the last words she had heard Bannister cry in his delirium: I tell you I am The Maverick! Over and over the words repeated themselves. But he had as much as told her he wasn’t the outlaw he was suspected of being. But, if he wasn’t, why should he make that declaration in his delirium? Truth will more often come out than not under such circumstances, as she well knew. She bit her lip and forced back the tears. He had been injured in her service and might lose his life or his reason. She would never forget that. And she would never tell him what he had said if he recovered.
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