 Both men were awake early, silent with the premonition of trouble ahead, thoughtful of the fact that the time for the long planned action was at hand. It was remarkable that a man so loquacious as Euker could hold his tongue so long, and this was significant of the deadly nature of the intended deed. During breakfast he set a few words customary in the service of food. At the conclusion of the meal he seemed to come to an end of deliberation. Buc, the senator the better now, he declared with a glint in his eye, the more time we use up now the less surprised to blandle be. I'm ready when you are," replied Dwayne quietly, and he rose from the table. Well, saddle up, then, went on Euker gruffly. Tie on them two packs I made, one for each saddle. You can't tell. Maybe either horse will be carrying double. It's good they're both big strong-horses. Guess that wasn't a wise move of your Uncle Euker's, bringing in your horses and having them ready. Euker, I hope you're not going to get in bad here. I'm afraid you are. Let me do the rest now," said Dwayne. If the old outlaw eyed him sarcastically. That'd be terrible now, wouldn't it? If you want to know why I'm in bad already. I didn't tell you that Allaway called me last night. He's getting wise pretty quick. Euker, you're going with me? Query Dwayne suddenly divining the truth. While I reckon, either to hell or safe over the mountain, I wished I was a gunfighter. I hate to leave here without taking a peg at Jack Rabbit Benson. Now, Buck, you do some hard figuring while I go nosing around. It's pretty early, which is all the better. Euker put on his sombrero, and as he went out Dwayne saw that he wore a gun and cartridge belt. It was the first time Dwayne had ever seen the outlaw armed. Dwayne packed his few belongings into his saddlebags and then carried the saddles out to the corral. And abundance of alfalfa in the corral showed that the horses had fared well. They had gotten almost fat during his stay in the valley. He watered them, put on the saddles loosely cinched, and then the bridles. His next move was to fill the two canvas water-bottles. That done, he returned to the cabin to wait. At the moment he felt no excitement or agitation of any kind. There was no more thinking and planning to do. The hour had arrived and he was ready. He understood perfectly the desperate chances he must take. His thoughts became confined to Euker and the surprising loyalty and goodness and the hardened old outlaw. Time passed slowly. Dwayne kept glancing at his watch. He hoped to start the thing and get away before the outlaws were out of their beds. Finally he heard the shuffle of Euker's boots on the hard path. The sound was quicker than usual. When Euker came around the corner of the cabin, Dwayne was not so astounded as he was concerned to see the outlaw wide and shaking. Sweat dripped from him. He had a wild look. "'Luck hours! So fur buck!' he panted. "'You don't look it!' replied Dwayne. "'I'm terrible sick. Just killed a man. First one I ever killed.' "'Who?' asked Dwayne, startled. "'Jack Rabbit Benson, and sick as I am, I'm glorian in it. I went nose and round up the road. Saw Allaway going into Deggers. He's thick with the Deggers. Reckon he's asking questions. Anyway, I was sure glad to see him away from Bland's, and he didn't see me. When I dropped into Benson's there wasn't nobody there but Jack Rabbit and some greasers he was starting to work. Benson never had no use for me. And he up and said he wouldn't give a two-bit piece for my life. I asked him why. "'You're double-crossing the boss and chess,' he said. "'Jack, what did you give for your own life?' I asked him. He straightened up surprised and mean-looking, and I let him have it, plumb, center. He wielded, and the greasers run. I reckon I'll never sleep again. But I had to do it.' Twain asked if the shot had attracted any attention outside. "'I didn't see anybody but the greasers, and I sure look sharp.' Coming back I cut across through the cotton-woods past Bland's cabin. I meant to keep out of sight, but somehow I had an idea I might find out if Bland was awake yet. Sure enough I run plum into Beppo, the boy who tins Bland's hauses. Beppo likes me. And when I inquired of his boss he said Bland had been up all night fighting with the senora. And buck, here's how I figure. Bland couldn't let up last night. He was sore, and he went after Kate again trying to wear her down. Just as likely he might have went after Jenny with wuss intentions. Anyway, he and Kate must have had it hot and heavy. We're pretty lucky. "'It seems so. Well, I'm going,' said Twain tersely. "'Lucky! I should smile or Bland's been up all night after a most dragon-ride home. He'll be fagged out this morning, sleepy, sore, and he won't be expecting hell before breakfast. Now, you walk over to his house. Meet him how you like. That's your game. But I'm suggesting. If he comes out and you want a parley, you can just say you'd thought over his proposition and was ready to join his band, or you ain't. You'll have to kill him, and it'd save time to go for your gun on sight. Might be wise, too, for it's likely he'll do that same.' "'How about the horses?' "'I'll fetch them and come along about two minutes behind you. Peers to me you ought to have the job done and Jenny outside by the time I get there. Once on them horses we can ride out of camp before Allaway or anybody else gets into action. Jenny ain't much heavier than a rabbit. That big black will carry you both.' "'All right. But once more, let me persuade you to stay, not to mix any more in this,' said Twain earnestly. "'Nope. I'm going. You heard what Benson told me. Allaway wouldn't give me the benefit of any doubts. Buck, a last word, look out for that bland woman.' Twain merely nodded, and then, saying that the horses were ready, he strode away through the grove. Accounting for the short cut across grove and field, it was about five minutes' walk up to Blann's house. To Twain it seemed long in time and distance, and he had difficulty in restraining his pace. As he walked there came a gradual and subtle change in his feelings. Again he was going out to meet a man in conflict. He could have avoided this meeting. But despite the fact of his courting the encounter, he had not as yet felt that hot inexplicable rush of blood. The motive of this deadly action was not personal, and somehow that made a difference. No outlaws were in sight. He saw several Mexican herders with a barrel. Blue columns of smoke curled up over some of the cabins. The fragrant smell of it reminded Twain of his home and cutting wood for the stove. He noted a cloud of creamy mist rising above the river, dissolving in the sunlight. Then he entered Blann's lane. While yet some distance from the cabin he heard loud, angry voices of man and woman, bland and Kate still quarreling. He took a quick survey of the surroundings. There was now not even a Mexican in sight. Then he hurried a little. Halfway down the lane he turned his head to peer through the cotton woods. This time he saw Euker coming with the horses. There was no indication that the old outlaw might lose his nerve at the end. Twain had feared this. Twain now changed his walk to a leisurely saunter. He reached the porch and then distinguished what was said inside the cabin. "'If you do, Blann, by heaven, I'll fix you and her.' That was panted out in Kate Blann's full voice. "'Let me looser. I'm going in there. I'll tell you.'" Replied Blann hoarsely. "'What for?' "'I want to make a little love to her. Ha-ha! It'll be fun to have the laugh on her new lover.' "'You lie,' cried Kate Blann. "'I'm not saying that I'll do anything to her afterward.' His voice grew hoarser with passion. Let me go now.' "'No, no, I won't let you go. You'll choke the truth out of her. You'll kill her.' "'The truth,' hissed Blann. "'Yes, I lied. Jen lied. But she lied to save me. You needn't murder her for that.'" Blann cursed horribly. Then followed a wrestling sound of bodies in violent straining contact, the scrape of feet, the jangle of spurs, a crash of sliding table or chair, and then the cry of a woman in pain. Dwayne stepped into the open door, inside the room. Kate Blann lay half across a table where she had been flung and she was trying to get to her feet. Blann's back was turned. He had opened the door into Jenny's room and had one foot across the threshold. Dwayne caught the girl's low, shuddering cry. Then he called out loud and clear. With cat-like swiftness Blann wheeled, then froze on the threshold. His sight, quick as his action, caught Dwayne's menacing, unmistakable position. Blann's big frame filled the door. He was in a bad place to reach for his gun, but he would not have time for a step. Blann read in his eyes the desperate calculation of chances. For a fleeting instant Blann shifted his glance to his wife. Then his whole body seemed to vibrate with a swing of his arm. Dwayne shot him. He fell forward, his gun exploding as it hit into the floor, and dropped loose from stretching fingers. Dwayne stood over him, stooped to turn him on his back. Blann looked up with clouded gaze, then gasped his last. "'Dwayne, you've killed him!' cried Kate Blann huskily. "'I knew you'd have to!' she staggered against the wall, her eyes dilating, her strong hands clenching, her face slowly whitening. She appeared shocked, half stunned, but shewed no grief. "'Jenny!' called Dwayne sharply. "'Oh, Dwayne!' came a holding reply. "'Yes, come out. Hurry!' She came out with uneven steps, seeing only him, and she stumbled over Blann's body. Dwayne caught her arm, swung her behind him. He feared the woman when she realized how she had been duped. His action was protective, and his movement toward the door equally as significant. "'Dwayne!' cried Mrs. Blann. It was no time for talk. Dwayne edged on, keeping Jenny behind him. At that moment there was a pounding of iron-shot hoofs out on the lane. Kate Blann bounded to the door. When she turned back her amazement was changing to realization. "'Where are you taking, Jen?' she cried, her voice like a man's. "'Get out of my way,' replied Dwayne. His look, perhaps, without speech, was enough for her. In an instant she was transformed into a fury. "'You hound! All the time you were fooling me. You made love to me. You let me believe. You swore you loved me. Now I see what was queer about you. All for that girl. But you can't have her. You'll never leave here alive. Give me that girl. Let me get out of her. She'll never win any more men in this camp.'" She was a powerful woman, and it took all Dwayne's strength a ward off her onslaughts. She clawed at Jenny over his upheld arm. Every second her fury increased. "'Help! Help! Help!' she shrieked in a voice that must have penetrated to the remotest cabin in the valley. "'Let go! Let go!' cried Dwayne, low and sharp. He still held his gun in his right hand, and it began to be hard for him to ward the woman off. His coolness had gone with her shriek for help. Let go!' He repeated, and he shoved her fiercely. Suddenly she snatched a rifle off the wall and backed away, her strong hands fumbling at the lever. As she jerked it down, throwing a shell into the chamber and cocking the weapon, Dwayne leaped upon her. He struck up the rifle as it went off, the powder burning his face. "'Jenny, run out! Get on a horse!' he cried. Jenny flashed out of the door. With an iron grasp, Dwayne held to the rifle barrel. He grasped it with his left hand, and he gave such a pull that he swung the crazed woman off the floor. But it could not loose her grip. She was as strong as he. "'Kate, let go!' he tried to intimidate her. She did not see his gun thrust in her face, or reason had given way to such an extent to passion that she did not care. She cursed. Her husband had used the same curses, and from her lips they seemed strange, unsexed, more deadly. Like a tigress she fought him. Her face no longer resembled a woman's. The evil of that outlaw life, the wildness and rage, the meaning to kill, was even in such a moment terribly impressed upon Dwayne. She heard a cry from outside. A man's cry, hoarse and alarming. He made him think of loss of time. This demon of a woman might yet block his plans. "'Let go!' he whispered, and felt his lips stiff. In the grimness of that instant he relaxed his hold on the rifle barrel. With sudden redoubled irresistible strength she wrenched the rifle down and discharged it. Dwayne felt a blow, a shock, a burning agony tearing through his breast. Then in a frenzy he jerked so powerfully upon the rifle that he threw the woman against the wall. She fell and seemed stunned. Dwayne leaped back, whirled, flew out of the door to the porch. The sharp cracking of a gun halted him. He saw Jenny holding to the bridle of his bay horse. Yooker was astride the other, and he had a colt leveled, and he was firing down the lane. Then came a single shot, heavier, and Yooker's ceased. He fell from the horse. A swift glance back showed to Dwayne a man coming down the lane, Chess Allaway. His gun was smoking. He broke into a run. Then in an instant he saw Dwayne and tried to check his pace as he swung up his arm. But that slight pause was fatal. Dwayne shot, and Allaway was falling when his gun went off. His bullet whistle closed to Dwayne and thutted into the cabin. Dwayne bounded down to the horses. Jenny was trying to hold the plunging bay. Yooker lay flat on his back, dead, a bullet hole in his shirt, his face set hard, and his hands twisted round gun and bridle. Jenny, you've nerve all right! cried Dwayne as he dragged down the horse she was holding. Up with you now. There! Never mind. Long stirrups! Hold on somehow! He caught his bridle out of Yooker's clutching grip, and leaped astride. The frightened horses jumped into a run and thundered down the lane into the road. Dwayne saw a man running from cabins. He heard shouts. But there were no shots fired. Jenny seemed able to stay on her horse, but without stirrups she was thrown about so much that Dwayne rode closer and reached out to grasp her arm. They rode through the valley to the trail that led up over the steep and broken rim-rock. As they began to climb, Dwayne looked back. No pursuers were in sight. Jenny, we're going to get away! he cried, exultation for her in his voice. She was gazing horror-stricken at his breast, as in turning to look back he faced her. Oh, Dwayne! your shirt's all bloody! she faltered, pointing with trembling fingers. With her words Dwayne became aware of two things. The handy instinctively placed to his breast still held his gun, and he had sustained a terrible wound. Dwayne had been shot through the breast far enough down to give him grave apprehension of his life. The clean-cut hole made by the bullet bled freely both at its entrance and where it had come out, but with no signs of hemorrhage. He did not bleed at the mouth, however he began to cough up a reddish-tinged foam. As they rode on, Jenny, with pale face and mute lips, looked at him. I'm badly hurt, Jenny, he said, but I guess I'll stick it out. The woman, did she shoot you? Yes, she was a devil. You could told me to look out for her. I wasn't quick enough. You didn't have to shiver the girl. No, no! he replied. They did not stop climbing while Dwayne tore a scarf and made compresses, which he bound tightly over his wounds. The fresh horses made fast time up the rough trail. From open places Dwayne looked down. When they surmounted the steep ascent and stood on top of the rim-rock, with no signs of pursuit down in the valley, and with the wild broken fastnesses before them, Dwayne turned to the girl and assured her that they now had every chance of escape. But your wound! she faltered, with dark troubled eyes. I see the blood dripping from your back. Jenny, I'll take a lot of killing, he said. Then he became silent and attended to the uneven trail. He was aware presently that he had not come into Bland's camp by this route. But that did not matter. Any trail leading out beyond the rim-rock was safe enough. What he wanted was to get far away into some wild retreat where he could hide till he recovered from his wound. He seemed to feel a fire inside his breast, and his throat burned so that it was necessary for him to take a swallow of water every little while. He began to suffer considerable pain, which increased as the hours went by, and then gave way to a numbness. From that time on he had need of his great strength and endurance. Gradually he lost his steadiness and his keen sight, and he realized that if he were to meet foes or if pursuing outlaws should come up with him, he could make only a poor stand. So he turned off on a trail that appeared seldom traveled. Soon after this move he became conscious of a further thickening of his senses. He felt able to hold on to his saddle for a while longer, but he was failing. Then he thought he ought to advise Jenny so in case she was left alone she would have some idea of what to do. Jenny, I'll give out soon. He said, No, I don't mean what you think, but I'll drop soon. My strength's going. If I die you ride back to the main trail, hide and rest by day, ride at night. That trail goes to water. I believe you could get across the nooses where some rancher will take you in. Dwayne could not get the meaning of her incoherent reply. He rode on and soon he could not see the trail or hear his horse. He did not know whether they traveled a mile or many times that far, but he was conscious when the horse stopped and had a vague sense of falling and feeling Jenny's arms before all became dark to him. When consciousness returned he found himself lying in a little hut of mesquite branches. It was well built and evidently some years old. There were two doors or openings, one in front and the other at the back. Dwayne imagined it had been built by a fugitive, one who meant to keep an eye both ways and not to be surprised. Dwayne felt weak and had no desire to move. Where was he, anyway? A strange, intangible sense of time, distance, of something far behind weighed upon him. Sight of the two packs Euker had made brought his thought to Jenny. What had become of her? There was evidence of her work in a smoldering fire and a little blackened coffee pot. Probably she was outside looking after the horses or getting water. He thought he heard his step and listened, but he felt tired and presently his eyes closed and he fell into a dose. Awakening from this he saw Jenny sitting beside him. In some way she seemed to have changed. When he spoke she gave a start and turned eagerly to him. Dwayne! she cried. Hello. How are you, Jenny? And how am I? He said, finding it a little difficult to talk. Oh, I'm all right, she replied. And you've come, too. Your wounds healed. But you've been sick. Fever, I guess, I did all I could. Dwayne saw now that the difference in her was a whiteness and tightness of skin, a hollowness of eye, a look of strain. Fever. How long have we been here? he asked. She took some pebbles from the crown of his sombrero and counted them. Nine. Nine days, she answered. Nine days, he exclaimed incredulously. But another look at her assured him that she meant what she said. I've been sick all the time. You nursed me? Yes. Bland's men didn't come along here? No. Where are the horses? I keep them grazing down in a gorge back of here. There's good grass and water. Have you slept any? A little. Lately I couldn't keep awake. Good Lord, I should think not. You've had a time of it sitting here day and night nursing me, watching for the outlaws. Come, tell me all about it. There's nothing much to tell. I want to know, anyway, just what you did, how you felt. I can't remember very well, she replied simply. We must have ridden forty miles that day we got away. You bled all the time. Toward evening you lay on your horse's neck. When we came to this place you fell out of the saddle. I dragged you in here and stopped your bleeding. I thought you'd die that night. But in the morning I had a little hope. I had forgotten the horses. But luckily they didn't stray far. I caught them and kept them down in the gorge. When your wounds closed and you began to breathe stronger, I thought you'd get well quick. It was fever they'd put you back. You raved a lot, and that worried me, because I couldn't stop you. Anybody treading us could have hurt you in good ways. I don't know whether I was scared most then or when you were quiet, and it was so dark and lonely and still all around. Every day I put a stone in your hat. Jenny, you saved my life, said Dwayne. I don't know, maybe. I did all I knew how to do, she replied. You saved mine more than my life. Their eyes met in a long gaze, and then their hands in a close glass. Jenny, we're going to get away, he said, with gladness. I'll be well in a few days. You don't know how strong I am. We'll hide by day and travel by night. I can get you across the river. And then, she asked, we'll find some honest rancher. And then, she persisted, why, he began slowly. That's as far as my thoughts ever got. It was pretty hard, I tell you, to assure myself of so much. It means your safety. You'll tell your story. You'll be sent to some village or town and taken care of until a relative or friend is notified. And you, she inquired in a strange voice. Dwayne kept silence. What will you do? She went on. Jenny, I'll go back to the brakes. I dare not show my face among respectable people. I'm an outlaw. You're no criminal, she declared, with deep passion. Jenny, on this border the little difference between an outlaw and a criminal doesn't count for much. You won't go back among those terrible men. You, with your gentleness and sweetness, all that's good about you? Oh, Dwayne, don't. Don't go. I can't go back to the outlaws. At least not Bland's band. No. I'll go alone. I'll lone-wolf it, as they say on the border. What else can I do, Jenny? Oh, I don't know. Couldn't you hide? Couldn't you slip out of Texas? Go far away? I could never get out of Texas without being arrested. I could hide. But a man must live. Never mind about me, Jenny. In three days Dwayne was able with great difficulty to mount his horse. During daylight, by short relays, he and Jenny rode back to the main trail, where they hid again till he had rested. Then in the dark they rode out of the canyons and gullies of the rim-rock, and early in the morning hauled it at the first water to camp. From that point they traveled after nightfall and went into hiding during the day. Once across the Nuisie's River, Dwayne was assured of safety for her and great danger for himself. They had crossed into a country he did not know. Somewhere east of the river there were scattered ranches. But he was as liable to find the rancher in touch with the outlaws as he was likely to find him honest. Dwayne hoped his good fortune would not desert him in this last service to Jenny. Next to the worry of that was realization of his condition. He had gotten up too soon. He had ridden too far and hard, and now he felt that any moment he might fall from his saddle. At last far ahead over a barren mesquite dotted stretch of dusty ground he aspired a patch of green and a little flat red ranch house. He headed his horse forward and turned to face he tried to make cheerful for Jenny's sake. She seemed both happy and sorry. When near at hand he saw that the rancher was a thrifty farmer, and thrifts spoke for honesty. There were fields of alfalfa, fruit trees, corrals, windmill pumps, irrigation ditches, all surrounding a neat little adobe house. Some children were playing in the yard. The way they ran at sight of Dwayne hinted of both the loneliness and the fear of their isolated lives. Dwayne saw a woman come to the door, then a man. The latter looked keenly, then stepped outside. He was a sandy-haired freckled Texan. "'Howdy, stranger,' he called, as Dwayne halted. Get down, you and your woman. Say now, are you sick or shot or what? Let me,' Dwayne, reeling in his saddle, bent searching eyes upon the rancher. He thought he saw good will, kindness, honesty. He risked all on that one sharp glance. Then he almost plunged from the saddle. The rancher caught him, helped him to a bench. "'Martha, come out here,' he called. This man's sick. No, he's shot, or I don't know bloodstains.' Jenny had slipped off her horse and to Dwayne's side. Dwayne appeared about to faint. "'Are you his wife?' asked the rancher. "'No, I'm only a girl he's saved from outlaws. Oh, he's so much paler. Dwayne! Dwayne!' "'Buck, Dwayne?' exclaimed the rancher, excitedly. "'The man who killed Blandon, Allaway? Say, I'll owe him a good turn, and I'll pay it, young woman.' The rancher's wife came out, and with a manner at once kind and practical, essayed to make Dwayne drink from a flask. He was not so far gone that he could not recognize its contents, which he refused, and weakly asked for water. When that was given him he found his voice. "'Yes, I'm Dwayne. I've only overdone myself, just all in. The wounds I got at Bland's are healing. Will you take this girl in, hide her a while till the excitement's over among the outlaws?' "'I sure will,' replied the Texan. "'Thanks. I'll remember you. I'll square it.' "'What are you going to do?' "'I'll rest a bit, then go back to the brakes.' "'Young man, you ain't in any shape to travel. See here. Any rustlers on your trail?' "'I think we gave Bland's gang the slip.' "'Good. I'll tell you what. I'll take you in along with the girl, and hide both of you till you get well. It'll be safe. "'My nearest neighbor is five miles off. We don't have much company.' "'You risk a great deal. Both outlaws and rangers are hunting me,' said Dwayne. "'Never seen a ranger yet in these parts. And I've always got along with outlaws, maybe except in Bland. I tell you I owe you a good turn.' "'My horses might betray you,' added Dwayne. "'I'll hide them in a place where there's water and grass. Nobody goes to it. Come now. Let me help you indoors.' Dwayne's last fading sensations of that hard day were the strange feel of a bed, a relief at the removal of his heavy boots, and of Jenny's soft, cool hands on his hot face. He lay ill for three weeks before he began to mend, and it was another week then before he could walk out a little in the dusk of the evenings. After that his strength returned rapidly, and it was only at the end of this long siege that he recovered his spirits. During most of his illness he had been silent, moody. "'Jenny, I'll be riding off soon,' he said one evening. "'I can't impose on this good man Andrews much longer. I'll never forget his kindness. His wife too. She's been so good to us.' "'Yes, Jenny. You and I will have to say good-bye very soon.' "'Don't hurry away,' she replied. Lately Jenny had appeared strange to him. She had changed from the girl he used to see at Mrs. Bland's house. He took her reluctance to say good-bye as another indication of her regret that he must go back to the brakes. Yet somehow it made him observe her more closely. She wore a plain white dress made from material Mrs. Andrews had given her. Sleep and good food had improved her. If she had been pretty out there in the outlaw den, now she was more than that. But she had the same paleness, the same strained look, the same dark eyes full of haunting shadows. After Dwayne's realization of the change in her he watched her more, with a growing certainty that he would be sorry not to see her again. "'It's likely we won't ever see each other again,' he said. "'That's strange to think of. We've been through some hard days, and I seem to have known you a long time.' Jenny appeared shy, almost sad, so Dwayne changed the subject to something less personal. Andrews returned one evening from a several days trip to Huntsville. "'Dwayne, everybody's talking about how you cleaned up the bland outfit,' he said, important and full of news. "'It's some exaggerated, according to what you told me. But you sure made friends on this side of the nuisies. I reckon there ain't a town where you wouldn't find people to welcome you. Huntsville, you know, is some divided in its ideas. Half the people are crooked. Surely enough all them who was so loud in praise of you are the crookedest. For instance, I met King Fisher, the boss-out-law of these parts. Well, King thinks he's a decent citizen. He was telling me what a grand job yours was for the border and honest cattlemen. Now that bland and alleyway are done for. King Fisher will find rustling easier. There's talk of heart in moving his camp over to Bland's. But I don't know how true it is. I reckon there ain't much to it. In the past when a big-out-law chief went under, his band almost always broke up and scattered. There's no one left who could run that outfit." "'Did you hear of any outlaws hunting me?' asked Wayne. "'Nobody from Bland's outfit is hunting you. That's sure,' replied Andrews. Fisher said there never was a hawk straddled to go on your trail. Nobody had any use for Bland. Anyhow, his men would be afraid to trail you. And you could go right into Huntsville, where you'd be some popular. Reckon you'd be safe, too, except when some of them fool saloon loafers or bad cow-punches would try to shoot you for the glory in it. Them kind of men will bob up everywhere you go, I'll be able to ride and take care of myself in a day or two," went on Dwayne. "'Then I'll go. I'd like to talk to you about Jenny. She's welcome to a home here with us. Thank you, Andrews. You're a kind man. But I want Jenny to get farther away from the Rio Grande. She'd never be safe here. Besides, she may be able to find relatives. She has some, though she doesn't know where they are." "'All right, Dwayne. Whatever you think best. I reckon now you'd better take her to some town. Go north and strike for Shelbyville or Crockett. Dims both good towns. I'll tell Jenny the names of men who will help her. You needn't ride into town at all.' "'Which place is nearer, and how far is it?' "'Shelbyville. I reckon about two days' ride. Poor stock country. You ain't liable to meet wrestlers. All the same. Better hit the trail at night and go careful.' At sunset two days later Dwayne and Jenny mounted their horses and said goodbye to the rancher and his wife. Andrews would not listen to Dwayne's thanks. "'I tell you I'm beholden to you yet,' he declared. "'Well, what can I do for you?' asked Dwayne. "'I may come along here again some day.' "'Get down and come in, then, or you're no friend of mine. I reckon there ain't nothing I can think of.' "'I just happen to remember.' Here he led Dwayne out of earshot of the women and went on in a whisper. "'Buck, I used to be well to do. Got skinned by a man named Brown, Rodney Brown. He lives in Huntsville and he's my enemy. I never was much on fighting or I'd affixed him. Brown ruined me, stole all I had. He's a hawse and cattle-thief, and he has pull enough at home to protect him. I reckon I didn't say any more.' "'Is this Brown a man who shot an outlaw named Stevens?' queried Dwayne curiously. "'Sure, he's the same. I heard that story. Brown swears he plugged Stevens through the mill. But the outlaw rode off and nobody ever knew for sure.' "'Luke Stevens died of that shot. I buried him,' said Dwayne. Andrews made no further comment, and the two men returned to the women. "'The main road for about three miles, then where it forks, take the left-hand road and keep on straight.' "'The main road for about three miles, then where it forks, take the left-hand road and keep on straight. That's what you said, Andrews?' "'Sure, it's—and good luck to you both.' Dwayne and Jenny trotted away into the gathering twilight. At the moment an insistent thought bothered Dwayne. Both Luke Stevens and the rancher Andrews had hinted to Dwayne to kill a man named Brown. Dwayne wished with all his heart that they had not mentioned it, let alone take for granted the execution of the deed. What a bloody place Texas was! Men who robbed and men who were robbed both wanted murder. It was in the spirit of the country. Dwayne certainly meant to avoid ever meeting this Rodney Brown. And that very determination showed Dwayne how dangerous he really was, to men and to himself. Sometimes he had a feeling of how little stood between his sane and better self and a self utterly wild and terrible. He reasoned that only intelligence could save him, only a thoughtful understanding of his danger and a hold upon some ideal. Then he fell into low conversation with Jenny, holding out hopeful views of her future, and presently darkness set in. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds, there was no air moving, the heat and oppression threatened storm. By and by Dwayne could not see a Rod in front of him, though his horse had no difficulty in keeping to the road. Dwayne was bothered by the blackness of the night. Travelling fast was impossible, and any moment he might miss the road that led off to the left. So he was compelled to give all his attention to peering into the thick shadows ahead. As good luck would have it, he came to higher ground where there was less mesquite, and therefore not such impenetrable darkness, and at this point he came to where the road split. Once headed in the right direction he felt easier in mind. To his annoyance, however, a fine misty rain set in. Jenny was not well dressed for wet weather, and for that matter neither was he. His coat, which in that dry warm climate he seldom needed, was tied behind his saddle, and he put it on Jenny. They travelled on. The rain fell steadily, if anything growing thicker. Dwayne grew uncomfortably wet and chilly. Jenny, however, fared somewhat better by reason of the heavy coat. The night passed quickly despite the discomfort, and soon a gray, dismal, rainy dawn greeted the travellers. Jenny insisted that he find some shelter where a fire could be built to dry his clothes. He was not in fit condition to risk catching cold. In fact, Dwayne's teeth were chattering. To find a shelter in that barren waste seemed a futile task. Quite unexpectedly, however, they happened upon a deserted adobe cabin situated a little off the road. Not only did it prove to have a dry interior, but also there was firewood. Water was available in pools everywhere. However, there was no grass for the horses. A good fire and hot food and drink changed the aspect of their condition as far as comfort went, and Jenny lay down to sleep. For Dwayne, however, there must be vigilance. This cabin was no hiding place. The rain fell harder all the time, and the wind changed to the north. It's a norther all right. But, or Dwayne, two or three days. And he felt that his extraordinary luck had not held out. Still one point favored him, and it was that travelers were not likely to come along during the storm. Jenny slept while Dwayne watched. The saving of this girl meant more to him than any task he had ever assumed. First it had been partly from a human feeling to succour an unfortunate woman, and partly a motive to establish clearly to himself that he was no outlaw. Lately, however, had come a different sense. A strange one, with something personal and warm and protective in it. As he looked down upon her a slight slender girl with bedraggled dress and disheveled hair, her face pale and quiet, a little stern in sleep, and her long dark lashes lying on her cheek, he seemed to see her fragility, her prettiness, her femininity as never before. But for him she might at that very moment have been a broken, ruined girl lying back in that cabin of the Blands. The fact gave him a feeling of his importance in the shifting of her destiny. She was unharmed, still young. She would forget and be happy. She would live to be a good wife and mother. Somehow the thought swelled his heart. His act, death-dealing as it had been, was a noble one, and helped him to hold on to his drifting hopes. Hardly once since Jenny had entered into his thought had those ghosts returned to torment him. Tomorrow she would be gone among good-kind people with a possibility of finding her relatives. He thanked God for that. Nevertheless he fell to pang. She slept more than half the day. Dwayne kept guard, always alert, whether he was sitting, standing, or walking. The rain pattered steadily on the roof and sometimes came in gusty flurries through the door. The horses were outside in a shed that afforded poor shelter, and they stamped restlessly. Dwayne kept them saddled and bridled. About the middle of the afternoon Jenny awoke. They cooked the meal and afterwards sat beside the little fire. She had never been, in his observation of her, anything but a tragic figure, an unhappy girl, the farthest removed from serenity and poise. That characteristic capacity for agitation struck him as stronger in her this day. He attributed it, however, to the long strain, the suspense nearing an end. Yet sometimes when his eyes were on him she did not seem to be thinking of her freedom, of her future. This time to-morrow you'll be in Shelbyville, he said. Where will you be? she asked quickly. Me? Oh, I'll be making tracks for some lonesome place, he replied. The girl shuddered. I've been brought up in Texas. I remember what a hard lot the men of my family had. But, poor as they were, they had a roof over their heads, a hearth with a fire, a warm bed, somebody to love them. And you, Dwayne, oh my God, what must your life be? You must ride and hide and watch eternally. No decent food, no pillow, no friendly word, no clean clothes, no woman's hand. Horses, guns, trails, rocks, holes. These must be the important things in your life. You must go on riding, hiding, killing until you meet. She ended with a sob and dropped her head on her knees. Dwayne was amazed, deeply touched. My girl, thank you for that thought of me, he said with a tremor in his voice. You don't know how much that means to me. She raised her face and it was tear-stained, eloquent, beautiful. I'm her tell. The best of the men go to the bed out there. You won't. Promise me you won't. I never knew any man like you. I—I—we may never see each other again after today. I'll never forget you. I'll pray for you, and I'll never give up trying to—to do something. Despair. It's never too late. It was my hope that kept me alive out there at Bland's before you came. I was only a poor weak girl. But if I could hope, so can you. Stay away from men. Be a lone wolf. Fight for your life. Stick out your exile and maybe some day. Then she lost her voice. Dwayne clasped her hand and with feeling as deep as hers promised to remember her words. In her despair for him she had spoken wisdom, pointed out the only course. Dwayne's vigilance, momentarily broken by emotion, had no sooner reasserted itself than he discovered the bay horse, the one Jenny-road, had broken his halter and gone off. The soft wet earth had deadened the sound of his hoofs. His tracks were plain in the mud. There were clumps of mesquite in sight, among which the horse might have strayed. It turned out, however, that he had not done so. Dwayne did not want to leave Jenny alone in the cabin so near the road, so he put her up on his horse and bait her follow. The rain had ceased for the time being, though evidently the storm was not yet over. The tracks led up a wash to a wide flat, where mesquite, prickly pear, and thorn-bush grew so thickly that Jenny could not ride into it. Dwayne was thoroughly concerned. He must have her horse. Time was flying. It would soon be night. He could not expect her to scramble quickly through that brake on foot. Therefore he decided to risk leaving her at the edge of the thicket and go in alone. As he went in a sound startled him. Was it the braking of a branch he had stepped on or thrust aside? He heard the impatient pound of his horse's hoofs. Then all was quiet. Still he listened, not wholly satisfied. He was never satisfied in regard to safety. He knew too well that there never could be safety for him in this country. The bay horse had threaded the aisles of the thicket. Dwayne wondered what had drawn him there. Certainly it had not been grass, for there was none. Presently he heard the horse tramping along and then he ran. The mud was deep and the short thorns made going difficult. He came up with a horse and at the same moment crossed a multitude of fresh horse-tracks. He bent lower to examine them and was alarmed to find that they had been made very recently, even since it had ceased raining. They were tracks of well-shot horses. Dwayne straightened up with a cautious glance all around. His instant decision was to hurry back to Jenny. But he had come a goodly way through the thicket and it was impossible to rush back. Once or twice he imagined he heard crashings in the brush, but did not halt to make sure. Certain he was now that some kind of danger threatened. Suddenly there came an unmistakable thump of horse's hoofs off somewhere to the fore. Then a scream rent the air. It ended abruptly. Dwayne leap forward, tore his way through the thorny break. He heard Jenny cry again, an appealing call quickly hushed. It seemed more to his right and he plunged that way. He burst into a glade where a smoldering fire and ground covered with footprints and tracks showed the campers had lately been there. Rushing across this he broke his passage out to the open. But he was too late. His horse had disappeared. Jenny was gone. There were no riders in sight. There was no sound. There was a heavy trail of horses going north. Jenny had been carried off, probably by outlaws. Dwayne realized that pursuit was out of the question. That Jenny was lost. CHAPTER X A hundred miles from the haunt's most familiar with Dwayne's deeds, far up where the new seas ran a trickling, clear stream between yellow cliffs stood a small, deserted shack of covered mesquite poles. It had been made long ago, but was well preserved. A door faced the overgrown trail and another faced down into a gorge of dense thickets. On the border fugitives from law and men who hid in fear of someone they had wronged never lived in houses with only one door. It was a wild spot, lonely, not fit for human habitation except for the outcast. He, perhaps, might have found it hard to leave for most of the other wild nooks in that barren country. Down in the gorge there was never-failing sweet water, grass all the year round, cool shady retreats, deer, rabbits, turkeys, fruit, and miles and miles of narrow twisting, deep canyons filled with broken rocks and impenetrable thickets. The scream of the panther was heard there. The squall of the wildcat, the cough of the jaguar. Innumerable bees buzzed in the spring blossoms, and it seemed scattered honey to the winds. All day there was continuous song of birds, that of the mockingbird loud and sweet and mocking above the rest. On clear days and rare indeed were cloudy days. With the subsiding of the wind at sunset a hush seemed to fall around the little hut. Our distant dim blue mountains stood gold-rimmed gradually to fade with the shading of light. At this quiet hour a man climbed up out of the gorge and sat in the westward door of the hut. This lonely watcher of the west and listener to the silence was Dwayne. And this hut was the one where, three years before, Jenny had nursed him back to life. The killing of a man named Sellers and the combination of circumstances that had made the tragedy a memorable regret had marked, if not a change, at least a cessation in Dwayne's activities. He had trailed Sellers to kill him for the supposed abducting of Jenny. He had trailed him long after he had learned Sellers traveled alone. Dwayne wanted absolute assurance of Jenny's death. Vague rumors, a few words here and there, unauthenticated stories, where all Dwayne had gathered in years to substantiate his belief that Jenny died shortly after the beginning of her second captivity. But Dwayne did not know surely. Sellers might have told him. Dwayne expected, if not to force it from him at the end, to read it in his eyes. But the bullet went too unerringly. It locked his lips and fixed his eyes. After that meeting Dwayne lay long at the ranch house of a friend, and when he recovered from the wound Sellers had given him. He started with two horses and a pack for the lonely gorge on the new seas. There he had been hidden for months, a prey to remorse, a dreamer, a victim of phantoms. It took work for him to find subsistence in that rocky fastness, and work, action, helped to pass the hours. But he could not work all the time, even if he had found it to do. Even in his idle moments and at night his task was to live with the hell in his mind. The sunset and the twilight hour made all the rest bearable. The little hut on the rim of the gorge seemed to hold Jenny's presence. It was not as if he felt her spirit. If it had been he would have been sure of her death. He hoped Jenny had not survived her second misfortune, and that intense hope had burned into belief, of not surety. Upon his return to that locality, on the occasion of his first visit to the hut, he had found things just as they had left them, and a poor, faded piece of ribbon Jenny had used to tie around her bright hair. No wandering outlaw or traveller had happened upon the lonely spot, which further endeared it to Dwayne. A strange feature of this memory of Jenny was the freshness of it, the failure of years, toil, strife, death-dealing to dim it, to deaden the thought of what might have been. He had a marvellous gift of visualization. He could shut his eyes and see Jenny before him just as clearly as if she had stood there in the flesh. For hours he did that, dreaming. Dreaming of life he had never tasted, and now never would taste. He saw Jenny's slender, graceful figure, the old brown ragged dress in which she had seen her first at Blanz, her little feet in Mexican sandals, her fine hands corsened by work, her round arms and swelling throat, and her pale, sad, beautiful face with its staring dark eyes. He remembered every look she had given him, every word she had spoken to him, every time she had touched him. He thought of her beauty and sweetness, of the few things which had come to mean to him that she must have loved him, and he trained himself to think of these in preference to her life at Blanz, the escape with him, and then her recapture, because such memories led to bitter, fruitless pain. He had to fight suffering because it was eating out his heart. Standing there, eyes wide open, he dreamed of the old homestead and his white-haired mother. He saw the old home life, sweetened and filled by dear new faces and added joys, go on before his eyes with him apart of it. Then in the inevitable reaction, in the reflux of bitter reality, he would send out a voiceless cry, no less poignant because it was silent. Poor fool! No, I shall never see mother again. Never go home. Never have a home. I am Dwayne the lone wolf. Oh, God! I wish it were over. These dreams torture me. What have I to do with a mother, a home, a wife? No bright-haired boy, no dark-eyed girl will ever love me. I am an outlaw, an outcast, dead to the good and decent world. I am alone, alone. Better be a callous brute or better dead. I shall go mad thinking. Man, what is left to you? A hiding place like a wolf's lonely silent days, lonely nights with phantoms, or the trail and the road with their bloody tracks, and then the hard ride, the sleepless hungry ride to some hole in rocks or breaks. What hellish thing drives me? Why can't I end it all? What is left? Only that damned unquenchable spirit of the gunfighter to live, to hang on to miserable life, to have no fear of death, yet to cling like a leech. To die as gunfighters seldom die, with boots off. Bane, you were first, and you're long avenged. I'd change with you. And cellars, you were last, and you're avenged. And you others, you're avenged. Lie quiet in your graves and give me peace. But they did not lie quiet in their graves and give him peace. A group of specters trooped out of the shadows of dusk and, gathering round him, escorted him to his bed. When Dwayne had been riding the trail's passion-bent to escape pursuers, or passion-bent in his search, the constant action and toil and exhaustion made him sleep. But when in hiding, as time passed, gradually he required less rest and sleep, and his mind became more active. Little by little his phantoms gained hold on him, and at length, but for the saving power of his dreams they would have claimed him utterly. How many times he had said to himself, I am an intelligent man, I'm not crazy, I'm in full possession of my faculties, all this is fancy, imagination, conscience. I have no work, no duty, no ideal, no hope, and my mind is obsessed, thronged with images, and these images naturally are of the men with whom I have dealt. I can't forget them. They come back to me hour after hour, and when my tortured mind grows weak, then maybe I'm not just right till the mood wears out and lets me sleep. So he reasoned as he lay down in his comfortable camp. That night was star-bright above the canyon walls, darkly shadowing down between them. The insects hummed and chirped, and thrummed a continuous thick song, low in monotonous. Slow running water splashed softly over stones in the stream-bed. From far down the canyon came the mournful hoot of an owl. The moment he lay down, thereby giving up action for the day, all these things weighed upon him like a great heavy mantle of loneliness. In truth, they did not constitute loneliness. And he could no more have dispelled thought than he could have reached out to touch a cold bright star. He wondered how many outcasts like him lay under this star-studded, velvety sky across the fifteen hundred miles of wild country between El Paso and the mouth of the river. A vast wild territory. A refuge for outlaws. Somewhere he had heard or read that the Texas Rangers kept a book with names and records of outlaws. Three thousand known outlaws. Yet these could scarcely be half of that unfortunate hoard that had been recruited from all over the States. Twain had traveled from camp to camp, den to den, hiding place to hiding place. And he knew these men. Most of them were hopeless criminals. Some were avengers. A few were wronged wanderers. And among them occasionally was a man, human in his way, honest as he could be, not yet lost to good. But all of them were akin in one sense, their outlawry. And that starry night they lay with their dark faces up. Some impacts like wolves. Others alone like the gray wolf who knew no mate. It did not make much difference than Twain's thought of them, that the majority were steeped in crime and brutality. More often than not, stupid from rum. And capable of a fine feeling. Just lost wild dogs. Twain doubted that there was a man among them who did not realize his moral wreck and ruin. He had met poor, half-witted wretches who knew it. He believed he could enter into their minds and feel the truth of all their lives. The hardened outlaw, coarse, ignorant, bestial, who murdered as Bill Black had murdered, who stole for the sake of stealing, who craved money to gamble and drink, defiantly ready for death, and like that terrible outlaw, Helm, who cried out on the scaffold, LETTER RIP! The wild youngsters seeking notoriety and reckless adventure. The cowboys were the notch on their guns, with boastful pride in the knowledge that they were marked by rangers. The crooked men from the north, defaulters, foragers, murderers. All pale-faced, flat-chested men not fit for that wilderness and not surviving. The dishonest cattlemen, hand and glove without laws, driven from their homes. The old, grizzled, bow-legged, genuine rustlers, all these Dwayne had come in contact with, had watched and known, and as he felt with them he seemed to see that as their lives were bad, sooner or later to end dismally or tragically, so they must pay some kind of earthly penalty, if not of conscience, than of fear. If not of fear, than of that most terrible of all things to restless active men, pain, the pang of flesh and bone. Dwayne knew, for he had seen them pay. Best of all, moreover, he knew the internal life of the gunfighter of that select boat by no means, small class of which he was representative. The world that judged him in his kind judged him as a machine, a killing machine, with only mildened enough to hunt, to meet, to slay another man. It had taken three endless years for Dwayne to understand his own father. Dwayne knew beyond all doubt that the gunfighters like Bland, like Alloway, like cellars, men who were evil and had no remorse, no spiritual accusing nemesis, had something far more torturing to mind, more haunting, more murderous of rest and sleep and peace, and that something was abnormal fear of death. Dwayne knew this, for he had shot these men. He had seen the quick dark shadow in eyes, the presentiment that the will could not control, and then the horrible certainty. These men must have been in agony at every meeting with a possible or certain foe, more agony than the hot rend of a bullet. They were haunted, too. Haunted by this fear, by every victim calling from the grave that nothing was so inevitable as death, which lurked behind every corner, hid in every shadow, laid deep in the dark tube of every gun. These men could not have a friend, they could not love or trust a woman. They knew their one chance of holding on to life lay in their own distrust, watchfulness, dexterity, and that hope, by the very nature of their lives, could not be lasting. They had doomed themselves. What then could possibly have dwelt in the depths of their minds as they went to their beds on a starry night like this, with mystery and silence and shadow, with time passing surely, and the dark future and its secret approaching every hour? What then, but hell? The hell in Dwayne's mind was not fear of man or fear of death. He would have been glad to lay down the burden of life, providing death came naturally. Many times he had prayed for it. But that overdeveloped, superhuman spirit of defense in him precluded suicide or the inviting of an enemy's bullet. Sometimes he had a vague, scarcely analyzed idea that this spirit was what had made the south-west habitable for the white man. Every one of his victims, singly and collectively, returned to him forever, it seemed, in cold, passionless, accusing domination of these haunted hours. They did not accuse him of dishonor or cowardice or brutality or murder. They only accused him of death. It was as if they knew more than when they were alive, had learned that life was a divine mysterious gift not to be taken. They thronged about him with their voiceless clamoring, drifted around him with their fading eyes. End of CHAPTER CHAPTER XI After nearly six months in the Newsea's gorge, the loneliness and inaction of his life drove Dwayne out upon the trails, seeking anything rather than to hide longer alone. A prey to the scourge of his thoughts. The moment he rode into sight of men, a remarkable transformation occurred in him. A strange warmth stirred in him. A longing to see the faces of people, to hear their voices. A pleasurable emotion, sad and strange. But it was only a precursor of his old, bitter, sleepless and eternal vigilance. When he hid alone in the breaks he was safe from all except his steeper, better self. When he escaped from this into the haunts of men, his force and will went to the preservation of his life. Mercer was the first village he rode into. He had many friends there. Mercer claimed to owe Dwayne a debt. On the outskirts of the village there was a grave overgrown by brush so that the rude-lettered post which marked it was scarcely visible to Dwayne as he rode by. He had never read the inscription. But he thought now of Harden, no other than the erstwhile ally of Blant. For many years Harden had harassed the stockmen and ranchers in and around Mercer. On an evil day for him he or his outlaws had beaten and robbed a man who once suckered Dwayne when sore in need. Dwayne met Harden in the little plaza of the village, called him every name known to boarder men, taunted him to draw and killed him in the act. Dwayne went to the house of one Jones, a Texan who had known his father, and there he was warmly received, the feel of an honest hand, the voice of a friend, the prattle of children who were not afraid of him or his gun, good wholesome food and change of clothes. These things for the time being made a change-man of Dwayne. To be sure he did not often speak. The price of his head and the weight of his burden made him silent. But eagerly he drank in all the news that was told him. In the years of his absence from home he had never heard a word about his mother or uncle. Those who were his real friends on the boarder would have been the last to make inquiries to write or receive letters that might give a clue to Dwayne's whereabouts. Dwayne remained all day with his hospitable Jones, and his twilight fell was loath to go and yielded to a pressing invitation to remain overnight. It was seldom indeed that Dwayne slept under a roof. Early in the evening, while Dwayne sat on the porch with two odd and hero-worshiping sons of the house, Jones returned from a quick visit down to the post-office. Samarily he sent the boys off. He labored under intense excitement. Dwayne, there's rangers in town. He whispered, It's all over town, too, that you're here. You rode in long after sun-up. Lots of people saw you. I don't believe there's a man or boy that had squeal on you, but the women might. They gossip, and these rangers are handsome fellows, devils with the women. What company of rangers? asked Dwayne quickly. Company A. under Captain McNally, that new ranger. He made a big name in the war, and since he's been in the ranger's service he's done wonders. He's cleaned up some bad places south, and he's working north. McNally, I've heard of him. Describe him to me. He built chap, but wiry and tough. Clean face, black mustache and hair. Sharp black eyes. He's got a look of authority. McNally's a fine man, Dwayne. Belongs to a good southern family. I'd hate to have him look you up. Dwayne did not speak. McNally's got nerve, and his rangers are all experienced men. If they find out you're here they'll come after you. McNally's no gun-fighter, but he wouldn't hesitate to do his duty, even if he faced sure death, which he would in this case. Dwayne, you mustn't meet Captain McNally. Your record is clean, if it is terrible. You never met a ranger or any officer except a rotten sheriff now and then, like Rod Brown. Still Dwayne kept silence. He was not thinking of danger, but of the fact of how fleeting must be his stay among friends. I've already fixed up a pack of grub, went on Jones. I'll snip out to saddle your horse. You watch here. He had scarcely uttered the last word when soft, swift footsteps sounded on the hard path. A man turned in at the gate. The light was dim yet clean enough to disclose an unusually tall figure. When it appeared nearer he was seen to be walking with both arms raised, hands high. He slowed his stride. Does Bert Jones live here? He asked in a low hurried voice. I reckon. I'm Bert. What can I do for you? replied Jones. The stranger peered around. Stealthily came closer, still with his hands up. It is known that Buck Dwayne is here. Captain McNally is camping on the river just out of town. He sends word to Dwayne to come out there after dark. The stranger wheeled and departed as swiftly and strangely as he had come. Bust me! Dwayne, whatever you make of that! exclaimed Jones. A new one on me! replied Dwayne thoughtfully. First full thing I ever heard of McNally doing. Can't make head nor tails of it. I'd have said offhand that McNally wouldn't double-cross anybody. He struck me as a square man, sand all through. But, hell, he must mean treachery. I can't see anything else in that deal. Maybe the captain wants to give me a fair chance to surrender without bloodshed. Observed Dwayne. Pretty decent of him if he meant that. He invites you out to his camp after dark. Nothing strange about this, Dwayne. But McNally's a new man out here. He does some queer things. Perhaps he's getting a swelled head. Well, whatever his intentions, his presence around Mercer is enough for us. Dwayne, you hit the road. Put some miles between you and the amiable captain before daylight. Tomorrow I'll go out there and ask him what in the devil he meant. That messenger he sent. He was a ranger, said Dwayne. Sure he was, and a nervy one. He must have taken sand to come bracing you that way. Dwayne, the fellow, didn't pack a gun. I'll swear to that. Pretty odd, this trick. But you can't trust it. Hit the road, Dwayne. A little later a black horse with muffled hoofs, bearing a tall, dark rider who peered keenly into every shadow, trotted down a pasture lane back of Jones's house, turned into the road, and then, breaking into a swifter gate, rapidly left Mercer behind. Fifteen or twenty miles out Dwayne drew rain in a forest of mesquite, dismounted and searched about for a glade with a little grass. Here he staked his horse in a long lariat, and, using his saddle for a pillow, his saddle-blanket for covering, he went to sleep. Next morning he was off again, working south. During the next few days he paid brief visits to several villages that lay in his path, and in each some one particular friend had a piece of news to impart that may Dwayne profoundly thoughtful. A ranger had made a quiet, unobtrusive call upon these friends, and left this message. Tell Buck Dwayne to ride into Captain McNally's camp some time after night. Dwayne concluded, and his friends all agreed with him, that the new ranger's main purpose in the Nussees country was to capture or kill Buck Dwayne, and that this message was simply an original and striking ruse, the daring of which might appeal to certain outlaws. But it did not appeal to Dwayne. His curiosity was aroused. It did not, however, tempt him to any foolhardy act. He turned southwest and rode a hundred miles until he again reached the sparsely settled country. Here he heard no more of rangers. It was a barren region he had never but once ridden through, and that riot had cost him dear. He had been compelled to shoot his way out. Outlaws were not in accord with the few ranchers and their cowboys who ranged there. He learned that both outlaws and Mexican raiders had long been in bitter enmity with these ranchers. Being unfamiliar with roads and trails, Dwayne had pushed on into the heart of this district when all the time he really believed he was traveling around it. A rifle shot from a ranch house, a deliberate attempt to kill him because he was an unknown rider in those parts, discovered to Dwayne his mistake, and a hard ride to get away persuaded him to return to his old methods of hiding by day and traveling by night. He got into rough country, rode for three days without covering much ground, but believed that he was getting on safer territory. Twice he came to a wide bottom land, green with willow and cottonwood and thick as chaperral, somewhere through the middle of which ran a river he decided must be the lower nucies. One evening, as he stole out from a covert where he had camped, he saw the lights of a village. He tried to pass it on the left, but was unable to because the breaks of this bottom land extended in almost to the outskirts of the village, and he had to retrace his steps and go round to the right. Wire fences and horses and pasture made this a task, so it was well after midnight before he accomplished it. He made ten miles or more than by daylight, and after that proceeded cautiously along a road which appeared to be well worn from travel. He passed several thickets where he would have halted to hide during the day, but for the fact that he had to find water. He was a long while in coming to it, and then there was no thicket or clump of mesquite near the water-hole that would afford him covert, so he kept on. The country before him was ridgy, and began to show cottonwoods here and there in the hollows, and yucca and mesquite on the higher ground. As he mounted a ridge he noted that the road made a sharp turn, and he could not see what was beyond it. He slowed up and was making the turn, which was downhill between high banks of yellow clay, when his meddlesome horse heard something to frighten him, or shied at something, and bolded. The few bounds he took before Dwayne's iron arm checked him were enough to reach the curve. One flashing glance showed Dwayne the open once more, a little valley below, with a wide, shallow, rocky stream, a clump of cottonwoods beyond, a somber group of men facing him, and two dark, limp, strangely grotesque figures hanging from branches. The sight was common enough in southwest Texas, but Dwayne had never before found himself so unpleasantly close. A horse voice peeled out, By hell, there's another one! Stranger, ride down and account for yourself, yelled another. Hands up! That's right, Jack, don't take no chances. Plug him! These remarks were so swiftly uttered as almost to be continuous. Dwayne was wheeling his horse when a rifle cracked. The bullet struck his left forearm, and he thought broke it, for he dropped the rain. The frightened horse leaped. Another bullet whistled past Dwayne. Then the bend in the road saved him probably from certain death. Like the wind his fleet steed went down the long hill. Dwayne was in no hurry to look back. He knew what to expect. His chief concern of the moment was for his injured arm. He found that the bones were still intact, but the wound, having been made by a soft bullet, was an exceedingly bad one. Blood poured from it. Giving the horse's head, Dwayne wound his scarf tightly round the holes, and with teeth and hand tied it tightly. That done he looked back over his shoulder. Rangers were making the dust fly on the hillside road. There were more coming round the cut where the road curved. The leader was perhaps a quarter of a mile back, and the others strung out behind him. Dwayne needed only one glass to tell him that they were fast and hard-riding cowboys and a land where all riders were good. They would not have owned any but strong, swift horses. Moreover, it was a district where ranchers had suffered beyond all endurance, the greed and brutality of outlaws. Dwayne had simply been so unfortunate as to run right into a lynching party, at a time of all times when any stranger would be in danger, and any outlaw put to his limit to escape with his life. Dwayne did not look back again till he had crossed the rugi piece of ground and gotten to the level road. He had gained upon his pursuers. When he ascertained this he tried to save his horse, to check a little that killing-gate. This horse was a magnificent animal, big, strong, fast, but his endurance had never been put to a grueling test. And that worried Dwayne. His life had made it impossible to keep one horse very long at a time, and this one was an unknown quantity. Dwayne had only one plan, the only plan possible in this case, and that was to make the river-bottoms, where he might allude his pursuers and the willow-breaks. Fifteen miles or so would bring him to the river, and this was not a hopeless distance for any good horse if not too closely pressed. Dwayne concluded presently that the cowboys behind were losing a little in the chase because they were not extending their horses. It was decidedly unusual for such riders to save their mouths. Dwayne pondered over this, looking backward several times to see if their horses were stretched out. They were not, and the fact was disturbing. Only one reason presented itself to Dwayne's conjecturing, and it was that with him headed straight on that road his pursuers were satisfied not to force the running. He began to hope and look for a trail, or a road turning off to right or left. There was none. A rough mesquite-dotted and yuck-aspired country extended away on either side. Dwayne believed he would be compelled to take to this hardgoing. One thing was certain. He had to go round the village. The river, however, was on the outskirts of the village, and once in the willows he would be safe. Dust clouds far ahead caused his alarm to grow. He watched with his eyes strained. He hoped to see a wagon, a few stray cattle. But no, he soon described several horsemen. Shots and yells behind him attested to the fact that his pursuers likewise had seen these newcomers on the scene. More than a mile separated these two parties, yet that distance did not keep them from soon understanding each other. Dwayne waited only to see this new factor show signs of sudden quick action, and then, with a muttered curse, he spurred his horse off the road into the brush. He chose the right side, because the river lay nearer that way. There were patches of open sandy ground between clumps of cactus and mesquite, and he found that despite a zigzag course he made better time. It was impossible for him to locate his pursuers. They would come together, he decided, and take to his tracks. What then was his surprise and dismay to run out of a thicket right into a low ridge of rough broken rock, impossible to get a horse over? He wheeled to the left along its base. The sandy ground gave place to a harder soil, whereas horse did not labor so. Here the growths of mesquite and cactus became scantor, affording better travel, but poor cover. He kept sharp eyes ahead, and as he had expected soon saw moving dust clouds and the dark figures of horses. They were half a mile away, and swinging obliquely across the flat, which fact proved that they had entertained a fair idea of the country and the fugitives difficulty. Without an instant hesitation Dwayne put his horse to his best efforts, straight ahead. He had to pass those men. When this was seemingly made impossible by a deep wash from which he had to turn, Dwayne began to feel cold and sick. Was this the end? Always there had to be an end to an outlaw's career. He wanted then to ride straight at these pursuers. But reason outweighed instinct. He was fleeing for his life. Nevertheless the strongest instinct at the time was his desire to fight. He knew that these three horsemen saw him, and a moment afterward he lost sight of them as he got into the mesquite again. He met now to try to reach the road, and pushed his mount severely, thus still saving him for a final burst. Rocks, thickets, bunches of cactus, washes, all operated against his following a straight line. Almost he lost his bearings, and finally would have ridden toward his enemies had not good fortune favored him in the matter of an open, burned-over stretch of ground. Here he saw both groups of pursuers, one on each side, and almost within gunshot. Their sharp yells, as much as his cruel spurs, drove his horse into that pace which now meant life or death for him. And never had Dwayne bestrowed a gamer, swifter, stauncher beast. He seemed about to accomplish the impossible. In the dragging sand he was far superior to any horse in pursuit, and on this sandy open stretch he gained enough to spare a little in the brush beyond. Heated now, and thoroughly terrorized. He kept the pace through thickets that almost tore Dwayne from his saddle. Something weighty and grim eased off Dwayne. He was going to get out in front. The horse had speed, fire, stamina. Dwayne dashed out into another open place dotted by a few trees, and here, right in his path, within pistol range, stood horsemen waiting. They yelled. They spurred toward him, but did not fire at him. He turned his horse, faced to the right. Only one thing kept it from standing his ground to fight it out. He remembered those dangling limp figures hanging from the cotton woods. These ranchers would rather hang an outlaw than do anything. They might draw all his fire and then capture him. His horror of hanging was so great as to be all out of proportion compared to his gunfighter's instinct of self-preservation. A race began then. A dusty, crashing drive through gray mesquite. Dwayne could scarcely see. He was so blinded by stinging branches across his eyes. The hollow wind roared in his ears. He lost his sense of the nearness of his pursuers. But they must have been close. Did they shoot at him? He imagined, he heard shots. But that might have been the cracking of dead snags. His left arm hung limp, almost useless. He handled the rain with his right. And most of the time he hung low over the pommel. The gray walls flashing by him, the whip of twigs, the rush of wind, the heavy, rapid pound of hoofs, the violent motion of his horse, these vied in sensation with the smart of sweat in his eyes, the rack of his wound, the cold, sick cramp in his stomach. With these also was dull, raging fury. He had to run when he wanted to fight. It took all his mind to force back that bitter hate of himself, of his pursuers, of this race for his useless life. Suddenly he burst out of a line of mesquite into the road. A long stretch of lonely road. How fiercely, with hot, strange joy, he wheeled his horse upon it. Then he was sweeping along, sure now that he was out in front. His horse still had strength and speed, but showed signs of breaking. Presently Dwayne looked back. Pursuers, he could not count how many, were loping along in his rear. He paid no more attention to them, and with teeth set he faced ahead, grimmer now in his determination to foil them. He passed a few scattered ranch houses where horses whistled from corrals, and men curiously watched him fly past. He saw one rancher running, and he felt instinctively that this fellow was going to join in the chase. Dwayne's steed pounded on, not noticeably slower, but with a lack of former smoothness, with a strained, convulsive, jerking stride which showed he was almost done. Side of the village ahead surprised Dwayne. He had reached it sooner than he expected. Then he made a discovery. He had entered the zone of wire fences. As he dared not turn back now he kept on, intending to ride through the village. Looking backward he saw that his pursuers were half a mile distant, too far to alarm any villagers in time to intercept him in his fight. As he rode by the first houses his horse broke and began to labor. Dwayne did not believe he would last long enough to go through the village. Saddled horses in front of a store gave Dwayne an idea, not by any means new, and one he had carried out successfully before. As he pulled in his heaving mount and leaped off a couple of ranchers came out of the place, and one of them stepped to a clean-limbed, fiery bay. He was about to get into his saddle when he saw Dwayne, and then he halted a foot in the stirrup. Dwayne strode forward, grasped the bridle of this man's horse. "'Mine's done, but not killed,' he panted. "'Traid with me.' "'Well, stranger, I'm sure always ready to trade,' drawled the man. "'But ain't you a little swift?' Dwayne glanced back up the road. His pursuers were entering the village. "'I'm Dwayne, buck Dwayne,' he cried, menacingly. "'Will you trade? Hurry!' The rancher, turning white, dropped his foot from the stirrup and fell back. "'I reckon I'll trade,' he said. Bounding up, Dwayne dug spurs into the bay's flanks. The horse snorted in fright, plunged into a run. He was fresh, swift, half wild. Dwayne flashed by the remaining houses on the street, out into the open. But the road ended at that village, or else let out from some other quarter, for he had ridden straight into the fields and from them into rough desert. When he reached the cover of Mesquite once more he had looked back to find six horsemen within rifle-shot of him, and more coming behind them. His new horse had not had time to get warm before Dwayne reached a high sandy bluff below which lay the willow-breaks. As far as he could see extended an immense, flat strip of red-tinged willow. How welcome it was to his eye! He felt like a hunted wolf that, weary and lame, had reached his hole in the rocks. Sigsagging down the soft slope he put the bay to the dense wall of leaf and branch. But the horse balked. There was little time to lose. Dismounting he dragged the stubborn beast into the thicket. This was harder and slower work than Dwayne carried to risk. If he had not been rushed he might have had better success. So he had to abandon the horse, a circumstance that only such sore straits could have driven him to. Then he went slipping swiftly through the narrow aisles. He had not gotten under cover any too soon, for he heard his pursuers piling over the bluff, loud voice, confident, brutal. They crashed into the willows. Hi, Sid, here's your horse, called one, evidently to the man Dwayne had forced into a trade. Say, if you local gents will hold up a little, I'll tell you something, replied a voice from the bluff. Come on, Sid, we got him corralled, said the first speaker. Well, maybe, and if you have it's liable to be damn hot. That fella is bucked Dwayne. But silence followed that statement. Presently it was broken by a rattling of loose gravel, and then low voices. He can't get across the river, I tell you! came to Dwayne's ears. He's corralled into break, I know that whole. Then Dwayne, gliding silently and swiftly through the willows, heard no more from his pursuers. He headed straight for the river. Threading a passage through a willow break was an old task for him. Many days and nights had gone to the acquiring of a skill that might have been envied by an Indian. The Rio Grande and its tributaries, for the most of their length in Texas, ran between wide, low, flat lands, covered by a dense growth of willow. Cottonwood, mesquite, prickly pear, and other growths mingled with a willow, and altogether they made a matted, tangled copse, a thicket that an inexperienced man would have considered impenetrable. From above these wild breaks looked green and red. From the inside they were gray and yellow, a striped wall. Trails and glades were scarce. There were a few deer runways and sometimes little paths made by peccaries, the jibali, or wild pigs of Mexico. The ground was clay, and unusually dry, sometimes baked so hard that it left no imprint of a track. Where a growth of cottonwood had held back the encroachment of the willows there usually was thick grass and underbrush. The willows were short, slender poles, with stems so close together that they almost touched, and with a leafy foliage forming a thick covering. The depths of this break Dwayne had penetrated was a silent, dreamy, strange place. In the middle of the day the light was weird and dim. When a breeze flooded the foliage, then slender shafts and spears of sunshine pierced the green mantle and danced like gold on the ground. Dwayne had always felt the strangeness of this kind of place, and likewise he had felt a protecting, harboring something which always seemed to him to be the sympathy of the break for a hunted creature. Any unwounded creature, strong and resourceful, was safe when he had glided under the low rustling green roof of this wild covert. It was not hard to conceal tracks. The springy soil gave forth no sound, and men could hunt each other for weeks, passing within a few yards of each other and never know it. The problem of sustaining life was difficult, but then hunted men and animals survived on very little. Dwayne wanted to cross the river if that was possible, and keeping in the break work his way upstream till he had reached country more hospitable. Remembering what the man had said in regard to the river, Dwayne had his doubts about crossing. But he would take any chance to put the river between him and his hunters. He pushed on. His left arm had to be favored, as he could scarcely move it. Using his right to spread the willows, he slipped sideways between them and made fast time. There were narrow aisles and washes and holes low down and paths brushed by animals, all of which he took advantage of, running, walking, crawling, stooping anyway to get along. To keep in a straight line was not easy. He did it by marking some bright sunlit stem or tree ahead, and when he reached it looked straight on to mark another. His progress necessarily grew slower, for as he advanced the break became wilder, denser, darker. Mosquitos began to whine about his head. He kept on without pause. Deepening shadows under the willows told him that the afternoon was far advanced. He began to fear he had wandered in a wrong direction. Finally a strip of light ahead relieved his anxiety, and after a toilsome penetration of still denser brush he broke through to the bank of the river. He faced a wide, shallow, muddy stream with breaks on the opposite bank extending like a green and yellow wall. Dwayne perceived at a glance the futility of his trying to cross at this point. Everywhere the sluggish river raved quicksand bars. In fact the bed of the river was all quicksand, and very likely there was not a foot of water anywhere. He could not swim, he could not crawl, he could not push a log across, and he solid thing touching that smooth yellow sand would be grasped and sucked down. To prove this he seized a long pole in reaching down from the high bank, thrusted into the stream. Right there near shore there apparently was no bottom to the treacherous quicksand. He abandoned any hope of crossing the river. Probably from miles up and down it would be just the same as here. Before leaving the bank he tied his hat upon the pole and lifted enough water to quench his thirst. Then he worked his way back to where thinner growth made advancement easier, and kept on upstream till the shadows were so deep he could not see. Feeling around for a place big enough to stretch out, he lay down. For the time being he was as safe there as he would have been beyond in the rim-rock. He was tired, though not exhausted, and in spite of the throbbing pain in his arm he dropped it once into sleep.