Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his bullets went wild.
Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped from his shoulder.
"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to Weaver, as the latter rode up.
Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the men that had disappeared.
Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' Rocks led up.
"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will be night, and you'll be safe. So-long."
"Where you going, Brill?"
"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down and out!"
The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for him to deal with on the Point instead of one—unless Brad reached the scene in time to assist him.
The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, faint cry of terror. What had happened was this:
Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run.
But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his gaze swept the bluff—and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes peering at him over the edge of the precipice.
The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men spoke. The outlaw fired first—wildly, for the arm which held the rifle was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing in a heap almost at the feet of the detective.
"Don't move!" ordered the latter.
Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he let go of it to close with the burly ruffian.
Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge.
They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the tension of their efforts. Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch any temporary advantage.
THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. (Page 340)
Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward the chasm.
The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out into the gulf head-first.
It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being.
A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry.
"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried.
"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized as hers.
"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded.
She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to the girl and touched her on the shoulder.
"Come."
She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?"
"With me."
"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!"
"Never mind that now. Come."
"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with you?" she asked evenly.
He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not.
The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new earth.
He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.
"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth.
"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're a murderer!"
He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.
"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of him.
He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he would not be a hunted man with a price on his head.
They could be married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted.
A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a rifle ready for instant action.
"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath.
"Have you killed him?"
The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!"
"Then who is that with you there?"
"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be married."
"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill you there, and you know it."
Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist.
Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?"
The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, but he knew that his own had crashed home.
The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested.
Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert in every pulse.
From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding face looked up into his.
"Good heavens, Keller!"
Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground and told his story in gasped fragments.
"—caught on a ledge—hung to some bushes growing there—climbed up—lay still when Healy looked over—a near thing—makes me sick still!"
"It was a millionth chance that saved you—if it was a chance."
"Where's Healy?"
Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me."
A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands.
"My little girl."
"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought——"
He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart."
Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy—boy—boy. I thought you were—I thought you were——"
She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day for congratulations."
Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, I know the answer now," she told him.
"I see you do."
"Don't—please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him."
The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register."
"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival.
Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes."
Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not miss me."
He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim Yeager.
"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly.
"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break."
"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose over his head, and he came through right away.
"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to show the boys."
"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough gather."
Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the mountains.
"Who is that?"
Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She followed us here."
"I told her not to come."
"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you reckon?"
"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly.
THE END
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Mavericks Page 23
