He stepped back to the table against the wall, took the chimney from the lamp, and flicked a match along his trousers, for in that way a match would make the least noise. Yet to the hair-trigger nerves of Andy the spurt and flare of the match was like the explosion of a gun. He lighted the lamp, turned down the wick, and replaced the chimney. Then he turned as though someone had shouted behind him. He whirled as he had whirled in the hall, crouching, and he found himself looking straight into the eyes of the girl as she sat up in bed.
Truly he did not see her face at first, but only the fear in it, parting her lips and widening her eyes. She did not speak; her only movement was to drag up the coverlet of the bed and hold it against the base of her throat.
Andy drew off his hat and stepped a little closer. "Do you know me?" he asked.
He watched her as she strove to speak, but if her lips stirred they made no sound. It tortured him to see her terror, and yet he would not have had her change. This crystal pallor or a flushed joy—in one of the two she was most beautiful.
"You saw me in Martindale," he continued. "I am the blacksmith. Do you remember?"
She nodded, still watching him with those haunted eyes.
"I saw you for the split part of a second," said Andy, "and you stopped my heart. I've come to see you for two minutes; I swear I mean you no harm. Will you let me have those two minutes for talk?" Again she nodded. But he could see that the terror was being tempered a little in her face. She was beginning to think, to wonder. It seemed a natural thing for Andy to go forward a pace closer to the bed, but, lest that should alarm her, it seemed also natural for him to drop upon one knee. It brought the muzzle of the revolver jarringly home against the floor.
The girl heard that sound of metal and it shook her; but it requires a very vivid imagination to fear a man upon his knees. And now that she could look directly into his face, she saw that he was only a boy, not more than two or three years older than herself. For the first time she remembered the sooty figure which had stood in the door of the blacksmith shop. The white face against the tawny smoke of the shop; that had attracted her eyes before. It was the same white face now, but subtly changed. A force exuded from him; indeed, he seemed neither young nor old.
She heard him speaking in a voice not louder than a whisper, rapid, distinct.
"When you came through the town you waked me up like a whiplash," he was saying. "When you left I kept thinking about you. Then along came a trouble. I killed a man. A posse started after me. It's on my heels, but I had to see you again. Do you understand?"
A ghost of color was going up her throat, staining her cheeks.
"I had to see you," he repeated. "It's my last chance. Tomorrow they may get me. Two hours from now they may have me salted away with lead. But before I kick out I had to have one more look at you. So I swung out of my road and came straight to this house. I came up the stairs. I went into a room down the hall and made a man tell me where to find you."
There was a flash in the eyes of the girl like the wink of sun on a bit of quartz on a far-away hillside, but it cut into the speech of Andrew Lanning. "He told you where to find me?" she asked in a voice no louder than the swift, low voice of Andy. But what a world of scorn!
"He had a gun shoved into the hollow of his throat," said Andy. "He had to tell—two doors down the hall—"
"It was Charlie!" said the girl softly. She seemed to forget her fear. Her head raised as she looked at Andy. "The other man—the one you—why—"
"The man I killed doesn't matter," said Andy. "Nothing matters except that I've got this minute here with you."
"But where will you go? How will you escape?"
"I'll go to death, I guess," said Andy quietly. "But I'll have a grin for Satan when he lets me in. I've beat 'em, even if they catch me."
The coverlet dropped from her breast; her hand was suspended with stiff fingers. There had been a sound as of someone stumbling on the stairway, the unmistakable slip of a heel and the recovery; then no more sound. Andy was on his feet. She saw his face whiten, and then there was a glitter in his eyes, and she knew that the danger was nothing to him. But Anne Withero whipped out of her bed.
"Did you hear?"
"I tied and gagged him," said Andy, "but he's broken loose, and now he's raising the house on the quiet."
For an instant they stood listening, staring at each other.
"They—they're coming up the hall," whispered the girl. "Listen!"
It was no louder than a whisper from without—the creak of a board. Andrew Lanning slipped to the door and turned the key in the lock. When he rejoined her in the middle of the room he gave her the key.
"Let 'em in if you want to," he said.
But the girl caught his arm, whispering: "You can get out that window onto the top of the roof below, then a drop to the ground. But hurry before they think to guard that way!" "Anne!" called a voice suddenly from the hall.
Andy threw up the window, and, turning toward the door, he laughed his defiance and his joy.
"Hurry!" she was demanding. A great blow fell on the door of her room, and at once there was shouting in the hall: "Pete, run outside and watch the window!"
"Will you go?" cried the girl desperately.
He turned toward the window. He turned back like a flash and swept her close to him.
"Do you fear me?" he whispered.
"No," said the girl.
"Will you remember me?"
"Forever!"
"God bless you," said Andy as he leaped through the window. She saw him take the slope of the roof with one stride; she heard the thud of his feet on the ground below. Then a yell from without, shrill and high and sharp.
When the door fell with a crash, and three men were flung into the room, Charles Merchant saw her standing in her nightgown by the open window. Her head was flung back against the wall, her eyes closed, and one hand was pressed across her lips.
"He's out the window. Down around the other way," cried Charles Merchant.
The stampede swept out of the room. Charles was beside her.
She knew that vaguely, and that he was speaking, but not until he touched her shoulder did she hear the words: "Anne, are you unhurt—has—for heaven's sake speak, Anne. What's happened?"
She reached up and put his hand away.
"Charles," she said, "call them back. Don't let them follow him!"
"Are you mad, dear?" he asked. "That murdering—"
He found a tigress in front of him. "If they hurt a hair of his head, Charlie, I'm through with you. I'll swear that!"
It stunned Charles Merchant. And then he went stumbling from the room.
His cow-punchers were out from the bunk house already; the guests and his father were saddling or in the saddle.
"Come back!" shouted Charles Merchant. "Don't follow him. Come back! No guns. He's done no harm."
Two men came around the corner of the house, dragging a limp figure between them.
"Is this no harm?" they asked. "Look at Pete, and then talk."
They lowered the tall, limp figure of the man in pajamas to the ground; his face was a crimson smear.
"Is he dead?" asked Charles Merchant.
"No move out of him," they answered.
Other people, most of them on horseback, were pouring back to learn the meaning of the strange call from Charles Merchant.
"I can't tell you what I mean," he was saying in explanation. "But you, dad, I'll be able to tell you. All I can say is that he mustn't be followed—unless Pete here—"
The eyes of Pete opportunely opened. He looked hazily about him.
"Is he gone?" asked Pete.
"Yes."
"Thank the Lord!"
"Did you see him? What's he like?"
"About seven feet tall. I saw him jump off the roof of the house. I was right under him. Tried to get my gun on him, but he came up like a wild cat and went straight at me. Had his fist in my face before I could get my finger on the trigger. And then the earth came up and slapped me in the face." "There he goes!" cried some one.
The sky was now of a brightness not far from day, and, turning east, in the direction pointed out, Charles Merchant saw a horseman ride over a hilltop, a black form against the coloring horizon. He was moving leisurely, keeping his horse at the cattle pony's lope. Presently he dipped away out of sight.
John Merchant dropped his hand on the shoulder of his son. "What is it?" he asked.
"Heaven knows! Not I!"
"Here are more people! What's this? A night of surprise parties?"
Six riders came through the trees, rushing their horses, and John Merchant saw Bill Dozier's well-known, lanky form in the lead. He brought his horse from a dead run to a halt in the space of a single jump and a slide. The next moment he was demanding fresh mounts.
"Can you give 'em to me, Merchant? But what's all this?"
"You make your little talk," said Merchant, "and then I'll make mine."
"I'm after Andy Lanning. He's left a gent more dead than alive back in Martindale, and I want him. Can you give me fresh horses for me and my boys, Merchant?"
"But the man wasn't dead? He wasn't dead?" cried the voice of a girl. The group opened; Bill Dozier found himself facing a bright-haired girl wrapped to the throat in a long coat, with slippers on her feet.
"Not dead and not alive," he answered. "Just betwixt and between."
"Thank God!" whispered the girl. "Thank God!"
There was only one man in the group who should not have heard that whispered phrase, and that man was Charles Merchant. He was standing at her side.
CHAPTER 8
It took less than five minutes for the deputy sheriff to mount his men; he himself had the pick of the corral, a dusty roan, and, as he drew the cinch taut, he turned to find Charles Merchant at his side.
"Bill," said the young fellow, "what sort of a man is this Lanning?"
"He's been a covered card, partner," said Bill Dozier. "He's been a covered card that seemed pretty good. Now he's in the game, and he looks like the rest of the Lannings—a good lump of daring and defiance. Why d'you ask?"
"Are you keen to get him, Bill?" continued Charlie Merchant eagerly.
"I could stand it. Again, why?"
"You'd like a little gun play with that fellow?"
"I wouldn't complain none."
"Ah? One more thing. Could you use a bit of ready cash?"
"I ain't pressed," said Bill Dozier. "On the other hand, I ain't of a savin' nature."
Then he added: "Get it out, Charlie. I think I follow your drift. And you can go as far as you like." He put out his jaw in an ugly way as he said it.
"It would be worth a lot to me to have this cur done for, Bill. You understand?"
"My time's short. Talk terms, Charlie."
"A thousand."
"The price of a fair hoss."
"Two thousand, old man."
"Hoss and trimmin's."
"Three thousand." "Charlie, you seem to forget that we're talkin' about a man and a gun."
"Bill, it's worth five thousand to me."
"That's turkey. Let me have your hand."
They shook hands.
"And if you kill the horses," said Charles Merchant, "you won't hurt my feelings. But get him!"
"I've got nothing much on him," said Bill Dozier, "but some fools resist arrest."
He smiled in a manner that made the other shudder. And a moment later the deputy led his men out on the trail.
They were a weary lot by this time, but they had beneath the belt several shots of the Merchant whisky which Charles had distributed. And they had that still greater stimulus—fresh horses running smooth and strong beneath them. Another thing had changed. They saw their leader, Bill Dozier, working at his revolver and his rifle as he rode, looking to the charges, trying the pressure of the triggers, getting the balance of the weapons with a peculiar anxiety, and they knew, without a word being spoken, that there was small chance of that trail ending at anything short of a red mark in the dust.
It made some of them shrug their shoulders, but here again it was proved that Bill Dozier knew the men of Martindale, and had picked his posse well. They were the common, hard-working variety of cow-puncher, and presently the word went among them from the man riding nearest to Bill that if young Lanning were taken it would be worth a hundred dollars to each of them. Two months' pay for two days' work. That was fair enough. They also began to look to their guns. It was not that a single one of them could have been bought for a mankilling at that or any other price, perhaps, but this was simply a bonus to carry them along toward what they considered an honest duty.
Nevertheless, it was a different crew that rode over the hills away from the Merchant place. They had begun for the sake of the excitement. Now they were working carefully, riding with less abandon, jockeying their horses, for each man was laboring to be in on the kill.
They had against them a good horse and a stanch horseman. Never had the pinto dodged his share of honest running, and this day was no exception. He gave himself whole-heartedly to his task, and he stretched the legs of the ponies behind him. Yet he had a great handicap. He was tough, but the ranch horses of John Merchant came out from a night of rest. Their legs were full of running. And the pinto, for all his courage, could not meet that handicap and beat it.
That truth slowly sank in upon the mind of the fugitive as he put the game little cattle pony into his best stride. He tried the pinto in the level going. He tried him in the rough. And in both conditions the posse gained slowly and steadily, until it became apparent to Andrew Lanning that the deputy held him in the hollow of his hand, and in half an hour of stiff galloping could run his quarry into the ground whenever he chose.
Andy turned in the saddle and grinned back at the followers. He could distinguish Bill Dozier most distinctly. The broad brim of Bill's hat was blown up stiffly. And the sun glinted now and again on those melancholy mustaches of his. Andy was puzzled. Bill had horses which could outrun the fugitive, and why did he not use them?
Almost at once Andy received his answer.
The deputy sheriff sent his horse into a hard run, and then brought him suddenly to a standstill. Looking back, Andy saw a rifle pitch to the shoulder of the deputy. It was a flashing line of light which focused suddenly in a single, glinting dot. That instant something hummed evilly beside the ear of Andy. A moment later the report came barking and echoing in his ear with the little metallic ring in it which tells of the shiver of a gun barrel.
That was the beginning of a running fusillade. Technically these were shots fired to warn the fugitive that he was wanted by the law, and to tell him that if he did not halt he would be shot at to be killed. But the deputy did not waste warnings. He began to shoot to kill. And so did the rest of the posse. They saw the deputy's plan at once, and then grinned at it. If they rode down in a mob the boy would no doubt surrender. But if they goaded him in this manner from a distance he would probably attempt to return the fire. And if he fired one shot in reply, unwritten law and strong public opinion would be on the side of Bill Dozier in killing this criminal without quarter. In a word, the whisky and the little promise of money were each taking effect on the posse.
They spurted ahead in pairs, halted, and delivered their fire; then the next pair spurted ahead and fired. Every moment or so two bullets winged through the air nearer and nearer Andy. It was really a wonder that he was not cleanly drilled by a bullet long before that fusillade had continued for ten minutes. But it is no easy thing to hit a man on a galloping horse when one sits on the back of another horse, and that horse heaving from a hard run. Moreover, Andy watched, and when the pairs halted he made the pinto weave.
At the first bullet he felt his heart come into his throat. At the second he merely raised his head. At the next he smiled, and thereafter he greeted each volley with a yell and with a wave of his hat. It was like dancing, but greater fun. The cold, still terror was in his heart every moment, but yet he felt like laughing, and when the posse heard him their own hearts went cold.