best aimed of all, smashed the silver brandy flask in Ashton’s hip pocket. Had he been upright in the saddle, the steel-jacketed bullet must have pierced him through the waist.
With a yell of terror, he flattened himself still closer to his pony’s neck and dug in his spurs at every jump. The beast was already going at a pace that would have won most quarter-mile sprints. Just after the fourth shot he swept in among the scattered bunch of cattle, running at his highest speed. Still Ashton swung his sharp-roweled spurs. He knew that the range of a high-power rifle is well over a mile.
To his vast surprise, the shooting ceased the moment he raced into line with the first steer. The short respite gave him time to recover his wits. 55
As the pony sprinted clear of the last steer in the bunch, a fifth bullet ranged close down over Ashton’s head. He pulled hard on the right rein and leaned the same way. The sixth shot burned the skin on the pony’s hip as he swerved suddenly towards the edge of the creek channel. He made a wild leap out over the edge of the cut bank and came plunging down on a gravel bar. At once he started to race along the dry stream bed. But instead of spurring, Ashton now tugged at the bridle.
The pony swung to the left and came to a halt close in under the bank. Ashton cautiously straightened from his crouch. When erect he was just high enough to see over the edge of the bank. Looking back and up the ridge, he saw the figure of a man clearly outlined against the sky. His lips closed in resolute lines; his dark eyes flashed. Jerking out his rifle, he set the sight for fifteen hundred yards, and began firing at the would-be murderer as coolly and steadily as a marksman.
Before he had pulled the trigger the third time the man leaped sideways and knelt to return his fire. At once Ashton gripped his rifle still more firmly and drew back the automatic lever. The crackling discharge was like the fire of a miniature Maxim gun. Puffs of dust spouted up all around the man on the ridge crest. He sprang to his feet and ran back out of sight, jumping from side to side like an Indian. 56
“Ho!” shouted Ashton. “He’s running! I made him run!”
He sat up very erect in his saddle, staring defiantly at the place where the murderer had disappeared.
“The coward! I made him run!” he exulted.
He shifted his grip on his rifle, and the heat of the barrel reminded him that he had emptied the magazine. He reloaded the weapon to its fullest capacity, and stood up in his stirrups to stare at the ridge crest. The murderer did not reappear. Ashton’s exultance gave place to disappointment. He was more than ready to continue the duel.
He rode down the creek, searching for a place to ascend the cut bank. But by the time he came to a slope he had cooled sufficiently to realize the foolishness of bravado. Not unlikely the murderer was lying back out of sight, ready to shoot him when he came up out of the creek. He reflected, and decided that the going was quite good enough in the bottom of the creek bed. He rode on down the channel, over the gravel bars, at an easy canter.
After a half mile the bank became so low and the creek bed so sandy that he turned up on to the dry sod. As he did so he kept his eye warily on the now distant ridge. But no bullet came pinging down after him.
Instead, he heard the thud of galloping hoofs, and twisted about just in time to see a rider top a rise a 57 short distance in front of him. He snapped down his breech sight and faced the supposed assailant with the rifle ready at his shoulder. Almost as quickly he lowered the weapon and snatched off his sombrero in joyful salute. The rider was Miss Knowles.
She waved back gayly and cantered up to him, her lovely face aglow with cordial greeting.
“Good noon!” she called. “So you have come at last? But better late than never.”
“How could I help coming?” he gallantly exclaimed.
“I see. The coyotes stole your cutlets, and you were hungry,” she bantered, as she came alongside and whirled her horse around to ride with him down the creek.
“How did you guess?” he asked.
“I know coyotes,” she replied. “They’re the worst––” She stopped short, gazing at the bleeding flanks of his pony. “Oh, Mr. Ashton! how could you? I did not think you so cruel!”
“Cruel?” he repeated, twisting about to see what she meant. “Ah, you refer to the spurring. But I simply couldn’t help it, you know. There was a bandit taking pot shots at me as I passed the ridge back there.”
“A bandit––on Dry Mesa?” she incredulously exclaimed.
“Yes; he pegged at me eight or nine times.” 58
The girl smiled. “You probably heard one of the punchers shooting at a coyote.”
“No,” he insisted, flushing under her look. “The ruffian was shooting at me. See here.”
He put his hand to his left hip pocket, one side of which had been torn out. From it he drew his brandy flask.
“That was done by the third or fourth shot,” he explained. “Do you wonder I was flat on my pony’s neck and spurring as hard as I could?”
The girl took the flask from his outstretched hand and looked it over with keen interest. In one side of the silver case was a small, neat hole. Opposite it half of the other side had been burst out as if by an explosion within. She took off the silver cap, shook out the shattered glass of the inner flask, and looked again at the small hole.
“A thirty-eight,” she observed.
“Pardon me,” he replied. “I fail to––Ah, yes; thirty-eight caliber, you mean.”
“It is I who must ask pardon,” she said in frank apology. “Your rifle is a thirty-two. I heard a number of shots, ending with the rattle of an automatic. Thought you were after another deer.”
He could afford to smile at the merry thrust and the flash of dimples that accompanied it.
“At least it wasn’t a calf this time,” he replied. “Nor was it a doe. But it may have been a buck.” 59
“Indian?” she queried, with instant perception of his play on the word.
“I didn’t see any war plumes,” he admitted.
“War plumes? Oh, that is a joke!” she exclaimed. She chanced to look down at the shattered flask, and her merriment vanished. “But this isn’t any joke. Didn’t you see the man who was shooting at you?”
“Yes, after I jumped my pony down into the creek. Perhaps the bandit thought he had tumbled us both. He stood up on top the ridge, until I cut loose and made him run.”
“He ran?”
Ashton’s eyes sparkled at the remembrance, and his chest began to expand. Then he met the girl’s clear, direct gaze, and answered modestly: “Well, you see, when I had got down behind the bank our positions were reversed. He was the one in full view. It’s curious, though, Miss Knowles––shooting at that poor calf, under the impression it was a deer, I simply couldn’t hold my rifle steady, while––”
“No wonder, if it was your first deer,” put in the girl. “We call it buck fever.”
