Even as he was hurtling through the air, he saw the horsemen. The Whippoorwill and Bar A outfits! He struck the ground with a curse exploding on his lips. A yell went up from the riders and in a few moments Darling and Hunter were surrounded. Hunter had flung himself from the saddle. He seemed to know what was coming as Darling scrambled to his feet and looked about, his eyes blazing. He saw Hunter as through a veil of blood.
“You’re first!” he yelled. “You double-crossing …!”
His gun spoke too late. Hunter had drawn with the speed of lightning when Darling’s right hand had winked at his side. The report of guns seemed to fill the air like a crash of thunder in the imagination of Wayne and the men with him. Darling sank to the ground and a single bullet sped wildly from his gun.
* * * * *
In the upstairs parlor of the hotel at Rainbow a small group was gathered. Pete Arnold and Ed Wayne were there. Ted was present, and Hunter.
“There isn’t any use of you folks talking to me,” Hunter was saying in a cold voice. “You’ve sent your men to the north range and what they find, they’ll find. I’m not a rustler. The only thing I’ll tell you is that I knew nothing of this kidnapping business until after it had been carried out. Darling is dead. I’m sorry I had to do it, but I had the idea all along that someday it … would come. I’m leaving town.”
He rose and turned to the door.
“I want to see you a minute,” said Ed Wayne, and he followed him out into the hall. There he pressed a roll of bills into his hand. “It’s the ten thousand I promised you,” he said. “You’ve turned the trick.”
“I’ll take the ten thousand, but no credit,” said Hunter.
Wayne felt slightly embarrassed. “I was wondering if you would take a good job on my ranch, Jim,” he said slowly.
“I’m too old to mess around with cows,” said Hunter grimly. “But I’m much obliged. So long.”
Ed Wayne watched him walk rapidly down the hall and turn down the stairs. As he opened the door into the parlor, he saw Arnold and Ted standing close to each other and Arnold was extending his hand.
“Well, I’m glad to see you don’t hate each other,” grunted the WP owner.
“I was congratulatin’ Ted, not for rescuin’ Polly … he doesn’t have to be congratulated for that … but for, well … for something else,” said Arnold. “I reckon we live too close together for any misunderstandings, Ed.”
“I’ve never thought anything else,” said Ed Wayne. He looked straight into Ted’s eyes. “Hunter told me about Boyd,” he said slowly, “and what happened up there on the rim of the Hole. I wish you’d have told me yourself. We’ll … we will ride home after dinner.”
“I think you and me being old-timers better ride back together,” said Pete Arnold. “We’ll let Ted take Polly home.”
* * * * *
The prairie flowed like gold under the crimson banners of the sunset. On the north range a band of riders was fleeing for the line and the cattle they had tried to steal were scattered behind another group of riders in fast pursuit. But in the south, all was calm.
Ted Wayne and Polly Arnold had stopped at the spring. They were standing hand in hand, looking at the glory in the west as their horses nibbled the grass behind them.
“Polly,” said Wayne in a soft voice, “I’ve had enough of it. I never knew till … till in the hotel in Rainbow how much I love you. Is your promise still good?”
She looked up with a glad light in her eyes. “It was always good, Ted, boy,” she murmured. “I lied to you that day.”
He took her in his arms. “If you always tell lies like that, sweetheart, we’ll be happy forever.” Then he kissed her.
They rode slowly homeward in the sunset’s afterglow, with a silvery blue sky above them, and a soft, sweet wind in their faces.
THE END
About the Author
Robert J. Horton was born in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. in 1889. As a very young man he traveled extensively in the American West, working for newspapers. For several years he was a sports editor for the Great Falls Tribune in Great Falls, Montana. He began writing Western fiction for Munsey’s All-Story Weekly magazine before becoming a regular contributor to Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine. By the mid-1920s Horton was one of three authors to whom Street & Smith paid 5¢ a word—the other two being Frederick Faust, perhaps better known as Max Brand, and Robert Ormond Case. Some of Horton’s serials for Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine were subsequently brought out as books by Chelsea House, Street & Smith’s book publishing company. Although all of Horton’s stories appeared under his byline in the magazine, for their book editions Chelsea House published them either as by Robert J. Horton or by James Roberts. Sometimes, as was the case with Rovin’ Redden (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts, a book would consist of three short novels that were editorially joined to form a “novel” and seriously abridged in the process. Other times the stories were magazine serials, also abridged to appear in book form, such as Unwelcome Settlers (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts or The Prairie Shrine (Chelsea House, 1924) by Robert J. Horton. It may be obvious that Chelsea House, doing a number of books a year by the same author, thought it a prudent marketing strategy to give the author more than one name. Horton’s Western stories are concerned most of all with character, and it is the characters that drive the plots rather than the other way around. Attended by his personal physician, he died of bronchial pneumonia in his Manhattan hotel room in 1934 at the relatively early age of forty-four. Several of his novels, after Street & Smith abandoned Chelsea House, were published only in British editions, and Robert J. Horton was not to appear at all in paperback books until quite recently.
Rainbow Range Page 21
