breathed a little prayer, dropped her right hand on the reins ahead of her left and turned the team around the curve at the foot of the hill as neatly as any stage-driver could have done it. That they swung round on a single wheel did not matter in the least. Beyond the curve one of the front wheels struck a rock that lifted Hazel a foot in the air and shot every single package and the tarpaulin out of the buckboard.
And now the road passed the wash and ran straight for more than half a mile till it disappeared over the rise of ground. Throughout the whole distance it was under the sharpshooting rifle of the man behind the outcrop.
As she clung to the pitching buckboard and plied the whip, she speculated on the probability of Jack Murray firing on her. He must realize her purpose. He had been called many things, but fool was not one of them. He might even shoot her. She recalled dim stories of Jack Murray's ruthlessness and grim singleness of purpose.
"Bound to get what he wants, no matter how," men had said of him.
Four hundred yards from the curve where the buckboard had so nearly upset, a Winchester cracked in the rear. The near mule staggered, tried to turn a somersault, and collapsed in a heap of sprawling legs and outthrust neck. The off mule fell on top of his mate, and Hazel catapulted over the dashboard and landed head first on top of the off mule.
The off mule regained his feet with a snort and a lurch, in the process throwing Hazel into a squaw bush. Dizzy and more than a little shaken, that young woman scrambled back into the trail and feverishly set about unhitching the mule.
She heard a yell from the direction of the outcrop above the wash. Fingers busy with the breast-strap snap, she looked back to see a man hurdle the outcrop and plunge toward her through the brush.
"Wait!" he bawled. "Wait!"
Her reply to this command was to spring to the tail of the mule and shout to him to back. He backed. She twitched both trace cockeyes out of the singletree hooks (she was using the wagon harness that day) tossed the traces over the mule's back and ran round in front to unbuckle the dead mule's reins.
"Halt or I shoot!"
She giggled hysterically. How could she halt when she had not yet started? She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand. He was a tall mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames, threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her lungs to "Go! Go! Go!"
He went. He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades. Hazel slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins. He hardly needed any encouragement. Her initial cry had been more than enough.
The man in the brush stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath. It had at last been borne in upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake. Instead of shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace. There were other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his enemy.
But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over. It was, not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman. He might just as well have shot Hazel—better, in fact. She had undoubtedly recognized him. Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.
"I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered. "That'll put a crimp in her."
He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger. Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel. Luckily she was not stunned and she rolled clear. She scrambled to her feet and set off up the trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.
"Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight. "I'd oughta drop her! She's askin' for it, the hussy!"
His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull. Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on safety. The drink was dying out in him. Against his will he rendered the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration. "Whatsa use? She's got too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."
On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly scratching the palms of her hands. But she scrambled to her feet and went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.
Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low croak.
Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel Walton. But the check was momentary. He clapped home the spurs and hustled his horse into a gallop. He and Hazel came together literally, forty yards below the crest. The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.
"Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy, dismounting in haste.
He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the ground. She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed away her varied emotions.
"There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess of her midnight hair. "It's all right. You're all right. You're all right. Nothing to worry about—not a-tall. You're safe. Don't cry. Tell me what's bothering you?"
And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.
It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning. They who can construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear explanation.
When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving, which order was superfluous. She did not want to get up again—ever.
Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise. Arrived at the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle at trail. Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.
He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape immediately in front of him. At first he saw nothing—then two hundred yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly thick shadow. He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.
The shadow of the sumac became thin. A dark objected flitted from it to another bush. The dark object was a man's head. It was hatless. Billy smiled and decided to wait. He understood that he was dealing with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter. He lay motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.
Billy smiled pityingly. It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had never been on a man hunt before. If he had he would have been more careful.
"Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a child."
It
