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Bransford Of Rainbow Range

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<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3> <h2>FLIGHT</h2> <div class="blockquot2">“Keep away from that wheelbarrow—what the hell do you know about machinery?”—Elbert Hubbard.[B] </div> Just after dark a horseman with a led horse came jogging round the mountain on the trail from Escondido. On the led horse was a pack bound rather slouchily, not to a packsaddle, but to an old riding saddle. The horses were unwilling to enter the circle of firelight, so the rider drew rein just beyond—a slender and boyish rider, with a flopping wide-brimmed hat too large for him. “Oh, look who’s here!” said Tobe, as one who greets an unexpected friend. “Hello, Tobe! Here’s your food, grub, chuck and provisions! Got your outlaw yet? Them other fellows will be out along toward midnight.” He went on without waiting for an answer: “Put me on your payroll. Pappy said I was to go to work—and if you was going to quit work to hunt down his friend you’d better quit for good. Lead [Pg 182]on to your little old mine. I don’t know where it is, even.” “I’ll go up and unpack, Rex,” said Tobe; “but, of course, I’m not going to lose my part of that five thousand. Pappy’s foolish. He’s gettin’ old. I’ll be back after a while and bring down the papers.” Chatting of the trapped outlaw, the Ophir men climbed the zigzag to the mine. To Griffith, their voices dwindled to an indistinct murmur; a light glowed through the tent on the dump. The stranger pressed into Jeff’s hand something small and hard—the little eohippus. “Here’s your little old token. Pappy caught on at once and he sent me along to represent. Let’s get this pack off and get out of here. Do we have to go down the same trail again?” “Oh, no,” said Jeff. “There’s a wood-trail leads round the mountain to the east. Who’re you? I don’t know you.” “Charley Gibson. Pappy knows me. He sent the little stone horse to vouch for me. I’m O. K. Time enough to explain when we’ve made a clean getaway.” “You’re damn right there,” Jeff said. “That boy down yonder is nobody’s fool. I’ll light a candle in the tent and he’ll think I’m reading the newspapers. That’ll hold him a while.” “I’ll be going on down the trail,” said Gibson. “This way, isn’t it?” [Pg 183] “Yes, that’s the one. All right. Go slow and don’t make any more noise than you can help.” Jeff would have liked his own proper clothing and effects, but there was no time for resuscitation. Lighting the candle, he acquired “Alice in Wonderland” and thrust it into the bosom of his shirt. It had been years since last he read that admirable work; his way now led either to hiding or to jail—and, with Alice to share his fate, he felt equal to either fortune. He left the candle burning: the tent shone with a mellow glow. “If he didn’t hear our horses coming down we’re a little bit of all right,” said Jeff, as he rejoined his rescuer on the level. “Even if he does, he may think we’ve gone to hobble ’em—only he’d think we ought to water ’em first. Now for the way of the transgressor, to Old Mexico. This little desert’ll be one busy place to-morrow!” They circled Double Mountain, making a wide détour to avoid rough going, and riding at a hard gallop until, behind and to their right, a red spark of fire came into view from behind a hitherto intervening shoulder, marking where Stone and Harlow held the southward pass. Jeff drew rein and bore off obliquely toward the road at an easy trot. “They’re there yet. So that’s all right!” he said. “They’ve just put on fresh wood. I saw it flame up just then.” He was in high feather. He began to laugh, or, more accurately, he resumed [Pg 184]his laughter, for he had been too mirthful for much speech. “That poor devil Griffith will wait and fidget and stew! He’ll think I’m in the tent, reading the newspapers—reading about the Arcadian bank robbery, likely. He’ll wait a while, then he’ll yell at me. Then he’ll think we’ve gone to hobble the horses. He won’t want to leave the gap unguarded. He won’t know what to think. Finally he’ll go up to the mine and see that pack piled off any which way, and no saddles. Then he’ll know, but he won’t know what to do. He’ll think we’re for Old Mexico, but he won’t know it for sure. And it’s too dark to track us. Oh, my stars, but I bet he’ll be mad!” <hr class="medium" /> Which shows that we all make mistakes. Mr. Griffith, though young, was of firm character, as has been lightly intimated. He waited a reasonable time to allow for paper-reading, then he waited a little longer and shouted; but when there was no answer he knew at once precisely what had happened: he had not been a fool at all, whatever Steele and Bransford had assured him, and he was a bigger fool to have allowed himself to be persuaded that he had been. It is true that he didn’t know what was best to do, but he knew exactly what he was going to do—and did it promptly. Seriously annoyed, he spurred through Double Mountain, gathered up Stone and Harlow, and followed the southward road. Bransford had [Pg 185]been on the way to Old Mexico—he was on that road still; Griffith put everything on the one bold cast. While the others saddled he threw fresh fuel on the fire, with a rankling memory of the candle in the deserted tent and Hannibal at Saint Jo. For the first time Griffith had the better of the long battle of wits. That armful of fuel slowed Jeff from gallop to trot, turned assured victory into a doubtful contest; when the fugitives regained the El Paso road Griffith’s vindictive little band was not five miles behind them. The night was lightly clouded—not so dark but that the pursuers noticed—or thought they noticed—the fresh tracks in the road when they came to them. They stopped, struck matches and confirmed their hopes: two shod horses going south at a smart gait; the dirt was torn up too much for travelers on their lawful occasions. From that moment Griffith urged the chase unmercifully; the fleeing couple, in fancied security, lost ground with every mile. <hr class="medium" /> “How on earth did you manage it? Didn’t they know you?” demanded Gibson as the pace slackened. “It wasn’t me! It was Tobe Long! ‘You may not have lived much under the sea, and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster,’” quoted Jeff. Rocking in the saddle, he gave a mirthful résumé of his little evanishment. [Pg 186]“And, oh, just think of that candle burning away in that quiet, empty tent! If I could have seen Griffith’s face!” he gloated. “Oh me! Oh my!... And he was so sure!... Say, Gibson, how do you come in this galley?” As a lone prospector his speech had been fittingly coarse; now, with every mile, he shook off the debasing influence of Mr. Long. “Kettle-washing makes black hands. Aren’t you afraid you’ll get into trouble?” “Nobody knows I’m kettle-washing, except Pappy Sanders and you,” said Gibson. “I was careful not to let your friend see me at the fire.” “I’ll do you a good turn sometime,” said Jeff. He rode on in silence for a while and presently was lost in his own thoughts, leaning over with his hands folded on his horse’s neck. In a low and thoughtful voice he half repeated, half chanted to himself: <div class="centerbox6 bbox2">“Illilleo Legardi, in the garden there alone, There came to me no murmur of the fountain’s undertone So mystically, magically mellow as your own!” </div> Another silence. Then Jeff roused himself, with a start. “I’ll tell you what, Gibson, you’d better cut loose from me. So far as I can see, you are only a kid. You don’t want to get mixed up in a murder [Pg 187]scrape. This would go pretty hard with you if they can prove it on you. Of course, I’m awfully obliged to you and all that; but you’d better quit me while the quitting’s good.” “Oh, no; I’ll see you through,” said Gibson lightly. “Besides, I know you had nothing to do with the murder.” “Oh, the hell you do!” said Jeff. “That’s kind of you, I’m sure. See here, who’d sold you your chips, anyway? How’d you get in this game?” “I got in this game, as you put it, because I jolly well wanted to,” replied Charley, with becoming spirit. “That ought to be reason enough for anything in this country. Nothing against it in the rules—and I don’t use the rules, anyhow. If you must have it all spelled out for you—I knew, or at least I’d heard, that your friends were away from Rainbow; so I judged you wouldn’t go up there. Then I knew those four amateur Sherlocks—they’re in my set in Arcadia. When two of the deerhunters, after starting at two A.M., came back to Arcadia the same morning they left, looking all wise and important, and slipped off on the train to Escondido, saying nothing to any one—and when the other two didn’t come home at all—I began to think; went down to the depot, found they had gone to Escondido, and I came on the next train. I found out Pappy was your friend; and when he got your little hurry-up call [Pg 188]I volunteered my services, seeing Pappy was too old and not footloose anyhow—with a wife and property. That’s the how of it.” “Oh, yes, that’s all right; but what makes you think I’m innocent?” “I know Mr. White, you see. And Mr. White seems to think that at about the time the bank was robbed you were—in a garden!” Charley’s voice was edged with faint mockery. “Huh!” said Jeff, startled. “Who in hell is Mr. White?” “Mr. White—in hell—is the devil!” said Charley. At this unexpected disclosure Jeff lashed his horse to a gallop—his spurs, you remember, being certain feet under the Ophir dump—and strove to bring his thoughts to bear upon this new situation. He slowed down and Charley drew up beside him. “You seem to have stayed quite a while—in a garden,” suggested Charley. “That tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble yet,” said Jeff. “You’ll never live to be grayheaded.” Charley was not to be daunted. “Say, Jeff, she’s pretty easy to get acquainted with, what? And those eyes of hers—a little on the see-you-later style, aren’t they?” Jeff turned in his saddle. “Now you look here, Mr. Charley Gibson! [Pg 189]I’m under obligations to you, and so on—but I’ve heard all of that kind of talk that’s good—sabe?” “Oh, I know her,” persisted Charley. “Know her by heart—know her like a book. She made a fool of me, too. She drives ’em single, double, tandem, random and four abreast!” “You little beast!” Jeff launched his horse at the traducer, but Gibson spurred aside. “Stop now, Jeffy! Easy does it! I’ve got a gun!” “Shut your damn head then! Gun or no gun, don’t you take that girl’s name in your mouth again, or——Hark! What’s that?” It was a clatter far behind—a ringing of swift hoofs on hard ground. “By George, they’re coming! Griffith will be a man yet!” said Jeff approvingly. “Come on, kid; we’ve got to burn the breeze! I suppose that talk of yours is only your damn fool idea of fun, but I don’t like it. Cut it out, now, and ride like a drunk Indian!” He laughed loud and long. “Think o’ that candle, will you?—burning away with a clear, bright, steady flame, and nobody within ten miles of it!” They raced side by side; but Gibson, heedless of their perilous situation, or perhaps taking advantage of it, took a malicious delight in goading Jeff to madness; and he refused either to be silent or to talk about candles, notwithstanding Jeff’s preference for that topic. [Pg 190] “I’m not joking! I’m telling you for your own good.” Here the tormentor prudently fell back half a length and raised his voice so as to be heard above the flying feet. “Hasn’t she gone back to New York, I’d like to know, and left you to get out of it the best way you can? She could ’a’ stayed if she’d wanted to. Don’t tell me! Haven’t I seen how she bosses her mother round? No, sir! She’s willing to let you hang to save herself a little slander—or, more likely, a little talk!” Jeff whirled his horse to his haunches, but once more Gibson was too quick for him. Gibson’s horse was naturally the nimbler of the two, even without the advantage of spurs. “That’s a lie! She was going to tell—she was bound to tell; I made her keep silent. After I jumped out she couldn’t well say anything. That’s why I jumped. Was I going to make her a target for such vile tongues as yours—for me? Oh! You ought to be shot out of a red-hot cannon, through a barbed-wire fence, into hell! You lie, you coward, you know you lie! I’ll cram it down your throat if you’ll get off and throw that gun down!” “Yah! It’s likely I’ll put the gun down!” scoffed Gibson. “Ride on, you fool! Do you want to hang? Ride on and keep ahead! Remember, I’ve got the gun!” “Hanging’s not so bad,” snarled Jeff. “I’d [Pg 191]rather be hung decently than be such a thing as you! Oh, if I just had a gun!” The sound of pursuit was clearer now; and, of course, the pursuers could hear the pursued as well and fought for every inch. Jeff rode on, furious at his helplessness. For several miles his tormentor raced behind in silence, fearing, if he persisted longer in his evil course, that Jeff would actually stop and give himself up. They gained now on their pursuers, who had pressed their horses overhard to make up the five-mile handicap. As they came to a patch of sandy ground they eased the pace somewhat. Charley drew a little closer to Jeff. “Now don’t get mad. I had no idea you thought so much of the girl——” “Shut up, will you?” “——or I wouldn’t have deviled you so. I’ll quit. How was I to know you’d stop to fight for her with the very rope round your neck? It’s a pity she’ll never know about it.... You can’t have seen her more than two or three times—and Heaven only knows where that was! On that camping trip, I reckon. What kind of a girl is she, anyhow, to hold clandestine interviews with a stranger?... She’ll write to you by and by—a little scented note, with a little stilted, meaningless word of thanks. No, she won’t. It’ll be gushy: ‘Oh, my hero! How can I ever repay [Pg 192]you?’ She won’t let you out of her clutches—anybody, so long as it’s a man! Here! None o’ that!... Go on, now, if you want to live!” “Who the hell wants to live?” A noose flew back from the darkness. Jeff’s horse darted aside and Gibson was jerked sprawling to the sand at a rope’s end—hat flew one way, gun another. Jeff ran to the six-shooter. “Who’s got the gun now?” he jeered, as he loosened the rope. “I only wish we had two of ’em!” “You harebrained idiot!” Charley grabbed up his hat and spit sand from his mouth. “Get your horse and ride, you unthinkable donkey!” “Pleasure first, business afterward!” Jeff unbuckled Gibson’s gunbelt and transferred it to his own waist, jerking Gibson to his feet in the violent process. “Now, you little blackguard, you either take back all that or you’ll get the lickin’ o’ your life! You’re too small; but all the same——” “Oh, I’ll take it back, you big bully—all I said and a lot more I only thought!” said Charley spitefully. He was almost crying with rage as he limped to his horse. “She’s an angel on earth! Sure she is! Ride, you maniac—ride! Oh, you ought to be hung! I hope you do hang—you miserable ruffian!” The following hoofs no longer rang sharply; [Pg 193]they took on a muffled beat—they were in the sand’s edge not a mile behind. “Ride ahead, you! I’ve got the gun, remember!” observed Jeff significantly; “but if you slur that girl again I’ll not shoot you—I’ll naturally wear you out with this belt.” <hr class="large" />[Pg 194] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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