And the boy, glancing back over his shoulder, answered curtly: “Yeah. If you ride fast enough.”
Hardin was taking no chances. He saw to it that the roan Scotch traveled slowly enough. There might be need for speed later—all that the stout-hearted little desert horse could give. Several times he halted the animal, to swab the dust and sand from Scotch’s nostrils with a wet bandanna, and to give him a mere sip of water from one of the canteens.
What old Hoaley had said was true. Hardin did not know the desert. He knew of it only, and had been glad enough of the old man’s advice. But he did know horses, he knew how to treat them, and how to ride. He knew the steady, patient method of putting the miles behind him, which was not much different in the sand with the proper horse under him than long miles ridden over hard ground.
At last, when the sun was climbing steadily toward the meridian, and the heat waves were like oven blasts, Hardin saw dimly, through the shimmering hot air, due ahead, the low-lying arc of dunes that rimmed the Devil’s Dance Floor. Though he had never been here before, Hardin recognized the approach to the Devil’s Dance Floor immediately, for Hoaley had impressed the dune formation upon him as an unmistakable landmark of his destination.
Pulling Scotch to a halt, Hardin sat motionless on the panting animal’s back, his hands crossed on the saddle horn, keenly studying the forbidding country spread before him, and searching for signs of his quarry. This was a kind of country with which he, used to rolling green prairie and lush-topped mesa land, was unfamiliar.
It was a country which he viewed with vast repugnance and unease, though he had realized he was coming to the open door of hell, as he had heard it described. It was a kind of nightmare country, a place of shifting sand held in place for the time being by low, matted patches of cacti and dry, unpleasant weeds the names of which he did not even know. And all of it looked as if it might shift at any moment to let the unsuspecting slip down into still hotter nether regions.
The only alternate sign of living growth was the aborted shapes of taller cacti, grotesque, contorted forms, like shambling skeletons stationed there by the desert itself as a grim warning to man not to enter.
Hardin’s gaze dropped to the sands. A few yards to his right were the clear tracks of Rood Vandover’s horse. He had followed them long enough and steadily enough for the past two days to be certain of them. As he had supposed, his quarry could not be far ahead of him, taking this quickest, if most terrible way of getting across the desert.
“Get along, Scotch,” Hardin said tersely to the desert horse.
Head hanging, with his nose close to the sand, Scotch moved on at a swinging walk, his course directly toward the heaving dunes as though he sensed their destination. In less than three-quarters of an hour, at that steady pace, Hardin arrived at and passed the sand hills spread in an arc around the approach to the awesome Devil’s Dance Floor.
Before him there burst into sight a vast level sweep of desert over which the sun beat down with a molten glare. But he gave it only one sweeping glance as he caught his breath in an involuntary ejaculation of gratified triumph. For not more than half a mile distant Rood Vandover plodded ahead on his black horse at a dogged walk!
Gage Hardin frowned, thinking swiftly. Of course Vandover had expected to be followed, had hoped to pull Hardin away from Great Lost Valley; though equally of course he had thought eventually to escape his pursuer. Apparently now Vandover had no idea that it would have been possible for Hardin to have drawn so close.
Hardin drew himself erect. The time for speed was now! Just one-half mile more, and—
He settled low in his saddle and touched Scotch lightly with his spurs. Not even in such an emergency would he rowel any horse. But even at the light touch Scotch responded so swiftly that Hardin’s hat swept from his head in the sudden rush of hot air, hanging down his back by its strap. He grabbed at it, swiftly clapping it back onto his head as the sun seemed to burn straight through his scalp.
Hardin’s thin, sweat-reeked shirt slapped against his skin as the horse made swift, bounding over the sand. The splayed hoofs of the desert-bred horse lashed the flying white particles into a spray that swept past Gage Hardin’s bandanna-protected mouth and nose. In that abrupt burst of speed, as the unsuspecting Vandover still jogged onward at his leisurely pace, unaware of vengeance flying at him, Hardin cut down the distance between himself and the fugitive man and horse by a good half.
Then, as if touched by some prescience of danger, Rood Vandover turned in his saddle and glanced uneasily rearward. As if stung by a thong of rawhide he straightened from his lounging attitude, whipping up his long-lashed quirt and bringing it furiously down on the flank of the exhausted black horse.
The big black reared and leaped forward, plunging into a wild gallop. For a short space, pursued and pursuer drew noticeably apart across the shifting sands, but after the initial fruitless dash they settled down to a punishing steady pace in which neither of them gained. Leaping over small clumps of cacti, darting around larger masses, weaving in and out between huge barrel cacti that reared their spiny growth skyward, with manes and tails flying the two horses bore their riders at a terrific pace over the face of the desert, oblivious to everything but their race. Even the sun that seared like scorching flame into sweat-flecked bodies was forgotten.
It was apparent that Vandover, after that first flash of dismay, had lapsed into a period of reassurance. He knew that he was riding a phenomenally fast horse and the one glance that he had caught of Gage Hardin’s horse had added to his reassurance. But now he was thinking more of escape than he was thinking of the way of escape. He began to grow anxious as he saw he was not gaining. And his confidence in his ability to elude the man behind him was short-lived.
Escape began quickly to seem less certain, as he realized that his black could not long maintain this deadly pace. Swept by his first real fear of being overtaken, Rood Vandover made the error that Hardin had half expected him to make. He began to beat his tiring horse without mercy, striving to force the spent animal to greater speed, a thing beyond the capacity of horseflesh.
The black gelding was already given the best that was in its great sturdy heart. But the roan was trained for such desert pursuit. Scotch began to gain. And Gage Hardin’s lips tightened to a grim straight line as he saw the quivering of the black horse ahead as the cruel quirt lashed down again and again.
That anything living could maintain such a galling pace under such conditions was beyond possibility. The bodies of the two horses were white-lathered with sweat. Their feet lashed with such speed in the maelstrom of flying sand that their speeding legs were a blur. Their breathing was a painful shriek through expanded nostrils in which stinging white particles lodged. Flecks of foam blew from their mouths upon their breasts and upon their riders’ clothes.
Both men knew that the harsh battle of pace could last little longer. But Rood Vandover knew it the better of the two. His faint-born fear rose to panic. He had not bargained for his nemesis to reach him here in the heart of the blistering desert where there were none of his gun companions to come to his aid. And his one hope—the swift horse upon which he had depended—was fast failing him.
The black horse was laboring hideously, but could gain nothing over the relentlessly pursuing roan. Instead, the gap between the two horses steadily diminished—to four hundred yards; to three hundred.
Then it was that Vandover’s courage failed him completely. Snatching his rifle from his saddle boot, he twisted about in the saddle, and with a last desperate effort at defense, began firing backward. His aim was shaken by the racing horse and the shimmering of the heat waves. Besides, he was too badly crazed by his fear of Gage Hardin’s righteous rage to think
