His foot touched loose rubble, and he could see that the face of the precipice was rooted here in a slope that led down steeply to another wall. The ledge was like a roof pitched at an extremely acute angle. He had to get down on hands and knees to keep from sliding to the edge of the second precipice. At every movement he started small avalanches of stone and dirt. He crept forward with the utmost caution, dragging the rifle by his side.
A shot rang out scarcely fifty yards from him, fired from the same ledge upon which he was crawling.
Had that shot been fired by an Apache or by those whom he had come to aid?
* * *
CHAPTER XL
GURLEY'S GET-AWAY
The boulder cave to which the Apaches had driven Dinsmore and Ramona had long since been picked out by the outlaws as a defensible position in case of need. The ledge that ran up to it on the right offered no cover for attackers. It was scarcely three feet wide, and above and below it the wall was for practical purposes perpendicular. In anticipation of a day when his gang might be rounded up by a posse, Pete Dinsmore had gone over the path and flung down into the gulch every bit of quartz big enough to shelter a man.
The contour of the rock face back of the big boulders was concave, so that the defenders were protected from sharpshooters at the edge of the precipice above.
Another way led up from the bed of the creek by means of a very rough and broken climb terminating in the loose rubble about the point where the ledge ran out. This Dinsmore had set Gurley to watch, but it was not likely that the Indians would reach here for several hours a point dangerous to the attacked.
Of what happened that day Ramona saw little. She loaded rifles and pushed them out to Dinsmore from the safety of the cave. Once he had shouted out to her or to Gurley news of a second successful shot.
"One more good Indian. Hi-yi-yi!" The last was a taunt to the Apaches hidden below.
There came a time late in the afternoon when the serious attack of the redskins developed. It came from the left, and it was soon plain that a number of Apaches had found cover in the rough boulder bed halfway up from the creek. Ramona took Dinsmore's place as guard over the pathway while he moved across to help Gurley rout the sharpshooters slowly edging forward.
One hour of sharp work did it. Man for man there never was any comparison between the Indians and the early settlers as fighting men. Dinsmore and Gurley, both good shots, better armed and better trained than the Apaches, drove the bucks back from the boulder bed where they were deployed. One certainly was killed, another probably. As quickly as they could with safety disengage themselves the braves drew down into the shelter of the brush below.
But Dinsmore knew that the temporary victory achieved could not affect the end of this one-sided battle. The Apaches would wipe all three of them out—unless by some miracle help reached them from outside. Ramona, too, knew it. So did Gurley.
As the darkness fell the fingers of 'Mona crept often to the little revolver by her side. Sometime soon—perhaps in three hours, perhaps in twelve, perhaps in twenty-four—she must send a bullet into her brain. She decided quite calmly that she would do it at the last possible moment that would admit of certainty. She must not make any mistake, must not wait till it was too late. It would be a horrible thing to do, but—she must not fall alive into the hands of the Apaches.
Crouched behind his boulder in the darkness, Gurley too knew that the party was facing extinction. He could not save the others by staying. Was it possible to save himself by going? He knew that rough climb down through the boulder beds to the cañon below. The night was black as Egypt. Surely it would be possible, if he kept well to the left, to dodge any sentries the Indians might have set.
He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. Furtively he glanced back toward the cave where the girl was hidden. She could not see him. Nor could Dinsmore. They would know nothing about it till long after he had gone. Their stupidity had brought the Apaches upon them. If they had taken his advice the savages would have missed them by ten miles. Why should he let their folly destroy him too? If he escaped he might meet some freight outfit and send help to them.
The man edged out from his rock, crept noiselessly into the night. He crawled along the steep rubble slide, wary and soft-footed as a panther. It took him a long half-hour to reach the boulder bed. Rifle in hand, he lowered himself from rock to rock, taking advantage of every shadow....
An hour later Dinsmore called to 'Mona. "Asleep, girl?"
"No," she answered in a small voice.
"Slip out with these cartridges to Steve and find out if anythin's doin'. Then you'd better try to sleep. 'Paches don't attack at night."
Ramona crept along the ledge back of the big boulders. Gurley had gone—vanished completely. Her heart stood still. There was some vague thought in her mind that the Indians had somehow disposed of him. She called to Dinsmore in a little stifled shout that brought him on the run.
"He's gone!" she gasped.
The eyes of Dinsmore blazed. He knew exactly how to account for the absence of the man. "I might 'a' known it. The yellow coyote! Left us in the lurch to save his own hide!"
"Perhaps he's gone for help," the girl suggested faintly.
"No chance. He's playin' a lone hand—tryin' for a get-away himself," her companion said bitterly. "You'll have to take his place here. If you see anything move, no matter what it is, shoot at it."
"If I call you will you come?" she begged.
"On the jump," he promised. "Don't go to sleep. If they should come it will be up through the boulder bed. I'm leavin' you here because you can watch from cover where you can't possibly be seen. It's different on the other side."
She knew that, but as soon as he had left her the heart of the girl sank. She was alone, lost in a night of howling savages. The horrible things they did to their captives—she recalled a story whispered to her by a girl friend that it had been impossible to shake out of her mind. In the middle of the night she had more than once found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, wakened from terrible dreams of herself as a prisoner of the Apaches.
'Mona prayed, and found some comfort in her prayers. They were the frank, selfish petitions of a little child.
"God, don't let me die. I'm so young, and so frightened. Send Daddy to save me ... or Jack Roberts."
She recited the twenty-third Psalm aloud in a low voice. The fourth verse she went back to, repeating it several times.
"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"
And the last verse:
"'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'"
Somehow she felt less lonely afterward. God was on her side. He would send her father or Jack Roberts.
Then, into her newborn calm, there came a far cry of agony that shattered it instantly. Her taut nerves gave way like a broken bow-string. Her light body began to shake. She leaned against the cold rock wall in hysterical collapse.
The voice of Dinsmore boomed along the passageway. "It's a cougar, girl. They've got a yell like the scream of lost souls. I've often heard it here."
Ramona knew he was lying, but the sound of his cheerful voice was something. She was not utterly alone.
Again that shriek lifted into the night and echoed up the cañon. The girl covered her ears with her hands and trembled violently. A shot rang out from the other end of the passage.
"Saw one of 'em movin' down below," the outlaw called to her.
But Ramona did not hear him. She had fainted.
* * *
CHAPTER XLI
HOMING HEARTS
Jack crept closer, very carefully. He was morally certain that the defenders held the ledge, but it would not do to make a mistake. Lives were at stake—one life much more precious than his own.
He drew his revolver and snaked forward. There was nothing else to
do but take a chance. But he meant at least to minimize it, and certainly not to let himself be captured alive.
It was strange that nobody yet had challenged him. He was close enough now to peer into the darkness of the tunnel between the boulders and the wall. There seemed to be no one on guard.
He crept forward to the last boulder, and his boot pressed against something soft lying on the ground. It moved. A white, startled face was lifted to his—a face that held only the darkness of despair.
He knelt, put down his revolver, and slipped an arm around the warm young body.
"Thank God!" he cried softly. He was trembling in every limb. Tears filled his voice. And over and over again he murmured, "Thank God!... Thank God!"
The despair in the white face slowly dissolved. He read there doubt, a growing certainty, and then a swift, soft radiance of joy and tears.
"I prayed for you, and you've come. God sent you to me. Oh, Jack, at last!"
Her arms crept round his neck. He held her close and kissed the sweet lips salt with tears of happiness.
He was ashamed of himself. Not since he had been a little boy had he cried till now. His life had made for stoicism. But tears furrowed down his lean, brown cheeks. The streak in him that was still tender-hearted child had suddenly come to the surface. For he had expected to find her dead at best; instead, her warm, soft body was in his arms, her eyes were telling him an unbelievable story that her tongue as yet could find no words to utter. There flamed in him, like fire in dead tumbleweeds, a surge of glad triumph that inexplicably blended with humble thankfulness.
To her his emotion was joy without complex. The Ranger was tough as a hickory withe. She knew him hard as tempered steel to those whom he opposed, and her heart throbbed with excitement at his tears. She alone among all women could have touched him so. It came to her like a revelation that she need never have feared. He was her destined mate. Across that wide desert space empty of life he had come straight to her as to a magnet.
And from that moment, all through the night, she never once thought of being afraid. Her man was beside her. He would let no harm come to her. Womanlike, she exulted in him. He was so lithe and brown and slender, so strong and clean, and in all the world there was nothing that he feared.
With her hand in his she walked through the passage to where Dinsmore held watch. The outlaw turned and looked at the Ranger. If anybody had told him that a time would come when he would be glad to see Tex Roberts for any purpose except to fight him, the bandit would have had a swift, curt answer ready. But at sight of him his heart leaped. No hint of this showed in his leathery face.
"Earnin' that dollar a day, are you?" he jeered.
"A dollar a day an' grub," corrected Jack, smiling.
"Much of a posse with you?"
"Dropped in alone. My men are camped a few miles back. Mr. Wadley is with us."
"They got Gurley, I reckon. He tried to sneak away." Dinsmore flashed a quick look toward Ramona and back at Jack. "Leastways I'm not bettin' on his chances. Likely one of the 'Paches shot him."
"Mebbeso."
The girl said nothing. She knew that neither of the men believed Gurley had been shot. Those horrible cries that had come out of the night had been wrung from him by past-masters in the business of torture.
"You'd better get back an' hold the other end of the passage," suggested Dinsmore. He jerked his head toward 'Mona. "She'll show you where."
Ramona sat beside her lover while he kept watch, her head against his shoulder, his arm around her waist. Beneath the stars that were beginning to prick through the sky they made their confessions of love to each other. She told him how she had tried to hate him because of her brother and could not, and he in turn told her how he had thought Arthur Ridley was her choice.
"I did think so once—before I knew you," she admitted, soft eyes veiled beneath long lashes. "Then that day you fought with the bull to save me: I began to love you then."
They talked most of the night away, but in the hours toward morning he made her lie down and rest. She protested that she couldn't sleep; she would far rather sit beside him. But almost as soon as her head touched the saddle she was asleep.
A little before dawn he went to waken her. For a moment the soft loveliness of curved cheek and flowing lines touched him profoundly. The spell of her innocence moved him to reverence. She was still a child, and she was giving her life into his keeping.
The flush of sleep was still on her wrinkled cheek when she sat up at his touch.
"The Apaches are climbing up the boulder field," he explained. "I didn't want to waken you with a shot."
She stood before him in shy, sweet surrender, waiting for him to kiss her before he took his post. He did.
"It's goin' to be all right," he promised her. "We'll drive 'em back an' soon yore father will be here with the men."
"I'm not afraid," she said—"not the least littlest bit. But you're not to expose yourself."
"They can't hit a barn door—never can. But I'll take no chances," he promised.
During the night the Apaches had stolen far up the boulder bed and found cover behind quartz slabs which yielded them protection as good as that of the white man above. They took no chances, since there was plenty of time to get the imprisoned party without rushing the fort. Nobody knew they were here. Therefore nobody would come to their rescue. It was possible that they had food with them, but they could not have much water. In good time—it might be one sleep, perhaps two, possibly three—those on the ledge must surrender or die. So the Indians reasoned, and so the Ranger guessed that they would reason.
Jack lay behind his rocks as patiently as the savages did. Every ten or fifteen minutes he fired a shot, not so much with the expectation of hitting one of the enemy as to notify his friends where he was. Above the cañon wall opposite the sun crept up and poured a golden light into the misty shadows of the gulch. Its shaft stole farther down the hillside till it touched the yellowing foliage of the cottonwoods.
Up the cañon came the sudden pop—pop—pop of exploding rifles. Drifted up yells and whoops. The Indians hidden in the rock slide began to appear, dodging swiftly down toward the trees. Jack let out the "Hi-yi-yi" of the line-rider and stepped out from the boulders to get a better shot. The naked Apaches, leaping like jack-rabbits, scurried for cover. Their retreat was cut off from the right, and they raced up the gorge to escape the galloping cowboys who swung round the bend. One of the red men, struck just as he was sliding from a flat rock, whirled, plunged down headfirst like a diver, and disappeared in the brush.
Jack waited to see no more. He turned and walked back into the cave where his incomparable sweetheart was standing with her little fingers clasped tightly together.
"It's all over. The 'Paches are on the run," he told her.
She drew a deep, long breath and trembled into his arms.
There Clint Wadley found her five minutes later. The cattleman brushed the young fellow aside and surrounded his little girl with rough tenderness. Jack waited to see no more, but joined Dinsmore outside.
After a long time Wadley, his arm still around Ramona, joined them on the ledge.
"Boys, I'm no hand at talkin'," he said huskily. "I owe both of you a damned sight more than I can ever pay. I'll talk with you later, Jack. What about you, Dinsmore? You're in one hell of a fix. I'll get you out of it or go broke."
"What fix am I in?" demanded the outlaw boldly. "They ain't got a thing on me—not a thing. Suspicions aren't proof."
The Ranger said nothing. He knew that the evidence he could give would hang Dinsmore before any Panhandle jury, and now his heart was wholly on the side of the ruffian who had saved the life of his sweetheart. None the less, it was his duty to take the man in charge and he meant to do it.
"Hope you can make yore side of the case stick, Dinsmore. I sure hope so. Anyway, from now on I'm with you at every turn of the road," the cattleman promised.
"Much obliged," answered the outlaw with a lif
t of his lip that might have been either a smile or a sneer.
"You've been trailin' with a bad outfit. You're a sure-enough wolf, I've heard tell. But you're a man all the way, by gad."
"Did you figure I was yellow like Steve, Clint? Mebbe I'm a bad hombre all right. But you've known me twenty years. What license have you ever had to think I'd leave a kid like her for the 'Paches to play with?" The hard eyes of the outlaw challenged a refutation of his claim.
"None in the world, Homer. You're game. Nobody ever denied you guts. An' you're a better man than I thought you were."
Dinsmore splattered the face of a rock with tobacco juice and his stained teeth showed in a sardonic grin.
"I've got a white black heart," he jeered.
* * *
CHAPTER XLII
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Rescued and rescuers rode out of the cañon as soon as the Apaches had been driven away. Nobody suggested that the Indians who had been killed in the surprise attack be buried. The bodies were left lying where they had fallen. For in those days no frontiersman ever buried a dead redskin. If the body happened to be inconveniently near a house, a mounted cowboy roped one foot and dragged it to a distance. Those were the years when all settlers agreed that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. The Indian wars are over now, and a new generation can safely hold a more humane view; but old-timers in the Panhandle will tell you to-day that the saying was literally true.
The little group of riders drew out of the gorge and climbed the shale slide to the plain above. Roberts rode knee to knee with Dinsmore. On the other side of the outlaw was Jumbo. The man between them still carried his rifle and his revolver, but he understood without being told that he was a prisoner.
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