CHAPTER XLV
THE OUTLAW GETS A BAD BREAK
Houck crawled through the barbed-wire fence and looked back into the parkfrom which he had just fled. June was kneeling beside the man he hadshot. Some one was running across the grass toward her. Soon the pursuitwould be at his heels. He dared not lose a second.
He plunged into the sage, making for the hills which rose like asaw-toothed wall on the horizon. If he could reach them he might findthere a precarious safety. Some wooded pocket would give him shelteruntil the pursuit had swept past. He was hungry, but if he must he coulddo without food for a day.
The bandit was filled with a furious, impotent rage at the way fortunehad tricked him. Thirty-five miles from Bear Cat, well back from theriver, three horses were waiting for him and his dead companions in adraw. Unless somebody found them they would wait a long time. The waythat led to them was barred for him. He would have to try to reachGlenwood or Rifle. From there he could perhaps catch a freight east orwest. His one chance was to get clear out of the country. After thisday's work it would be too small to hold him.
Nothing had come out as he had planned it. The farthest thing from hishopes had been that he would have to fight his way out. He had not killedthat fool Dillon of set purpose. He knew now that if his anger had notblazed out he might have made his getaway and left the fellow alive. Buthe had been given no time to think. It was a bad break of the luck. TheWhite River settlers would not forgive him that. They would remember thatDillon had saved him from the Indians in the Ute campaign, and they wouldreason--the thickheaded idiots--that the least he could have done was tolet the boy go.
He plunged through the sand of the sage hills at a gait that was half arun and half a walk. In his high-heeled boots fast travel was difficult.The footgear of the cattleman is not made for walking. The hill riders domost of their travel in a saddle. Houck's feet hurt. His toes were drivenforward in the boots until each step became torture. From his heels theskin peeled from sliding up and down against the hard leather.
But he dared not stop. Already he could hear the pursuers. In the stillnight there came to him the shout of one calling to another, the ring ofa horse's hoof striking on a stone. They were combing the mesa behindhim.
Houck stumbled forward. Vaguely there rose before him a boulder-strewnslope that marked the limit of the valley. Up this he scrambled in adesperate hurry to reach the rocks. For the pursuit was almost upon himnow.
Two outcroppings of sandstone barred the way. They leaned against eachother, leaving a small cave beneath. Into this Houck crawled on hands andknees.
He lay crouched there, weapon in hand, like a cornered wolf, while theriders swept up and past. He knew one palpitating moment when he thoughthimself about to be discovered. Two of the posse stopped close to hishiding-place.
"Must be close to him," one said. "Got the makin's, Jim?"
"Sure." Evidently the tobacco pouch was passed from one to the other."Right in these rocks somewhere, I shouldn't wonder."
"Mebbeso. Mebbe still hot-footin' it for the hills. He's in one heluvahurry if you ask me."
"Killed Bob Dillon in the park, I heard."
"If he did he'll sure hang for it, after what Dillon did for him."
There came the faint sound of creaking leather as their horses moved upthe hill.
The outlaw waited till they were out of hearing before he crept into theopen. Across the face of the slope he cut obliquely, working alwaystoward higher ground. His lips were drawn back so that thetobacco-stained teeth showed in a snarl of savage rage. It would go illwith any of the posse if they should stumble on him. He would have nomore mercy than a hunted wild beast.
With every minute now his chances of safety increased. The riders werefar above him and to the left. With luck he should reach Piceance Creekby morning. He would travel up it till he came to Pete Tolliver's place.He would make the old man give him a horse. Not since the night he hadbeen ridden out of Bear Cat on a rail had he seen the nester. But Petealways had been putty in his hands. It would be easy enough to bully himinto letting him have whatever he wanted. All he needed was a saddledmount and provisions.
Houck was on unfamiliar ground. If there were settlers in these hills hedid not know where they were. Across the divide somewhere ran PiceanceCreek, but except in a vague way he was not sure of the direction ittook. It was possible he might lay hold of a horse this side ofTolliver's. If so, he would not for a moment hesitate to take it.
All night he traveled. Once he thought he heard a distant dog, but thoughhe moved in the direction from which the barking had come he did not findany ranch. The first faint glimmer of gray dawn had begun to lighten thesky when he reached the watershed of Piceance.
It had been seventeen hours since he had tasted water and that had beenas a chaser after a large drink of whiskey. He was thirsty, and hehastened his pace to reach the creek. Moving down the slope, he pulled upabruptly. He had run into a cavvy grazing on the hill.
A thick growth of pine and pinon ran up to the ridge above. Back of ascrub evergreen Houck dropped to consider a plan of action. He meant toget one of these horses, and to do this he must have it and be gonebefore dawn. This was probably some round-up. If he could drift aroundclose to the camp and find a saddle, there would likely be a ropeattached to it. He might, of course, be seen, but he would have to take achance on that.
Chance befriended him to his undoing. As he crept through the brushsomething caught his ankle and he stumbled. His groping fingers found arope. One end of the rope was attached to a stake driven into the ground.The other led to a horse, a pinto, built for spirit and for speed, histrained eye could tell.
He pulled up the stake and wound up the rope, moving toward the pinto ashe did so. He decided it would be better not to try to get a saddle tillhe reached Tolliver's place. The rope would do for a bridle at a pinch.
The horse backed away from him, frightened at this stranger who hadappeared from nowhere. He followed, trying in a whisper to soothe theanimal. It backed into a small pinon, snapping dry branches with itsweight.
Houck cursed softly. He did not want to arouse anybody in the camp or tocall the attention of the night jinglers to his presence. He tried tolead the pinto away, but it balked and dug its forefeet into the ground,leaning back on the rope.
The outlaw murmured encouragement to the horse. Reluctantly it yielded tothe steady pull on its neck. Man and beast began to move back up thehill. As soon as he was a safe distance from the camp, Houck meant tomake of the rope a bridle.
In the pre-dawn darkness he could see little and that only as vagueoutlines rather than definite shapes. But some instinct warned the huntedman that this was no round-up camp. He did not quite know what it was.Yet he felt as though he were on the verge of a discovery, as though anunknown but terrible danger surrounded him. Unimaginative he was, butsomething that was almost panic flooded up in him.
He could not wait to mount the horse until he had reached the brow of thehill. Drawing the rope close, he caught at the mane of the horse and benthis knees for the spring.
Houck had an instant's warning, and his revolver was half out of itsscabbard when the rush of the attack flung him against the startledanimal. He fought like a baited bear, exerting all his great strength tofling back the figures that surged up at him out of the darkness. Fromall sides they came at him, with guttural throat cries, swarming overeach other as he beat them down.
The struggling mass quartered over the ground like some unwieldyprehistoric reptile. Houck knew that if he lost his footing he was donefor. Once, as the cluster of fighters swung downhill, the outlaw foundhimself close to the edge of the group. He got his arms free and tried tobeat off those clinging to him. Out of the melee he staggered, a pair ofarms locked tightly round his thighs. Before he could free himselfanother body flung itself at his shoulder and hurled him from his feet.
His foes piled on him as ants do on a captured insect. His arms were tiedbehind him with rawhide thongs, his feet fastene
d together ratherloosely.
He was pulled to a sitting posture. In the east the sky had lightenedwith the promise of the coming day.
His clothes torn from arms and body, his face bleeding from random blows,Houck looked round on the circle of his captors defiantly. In his glaringeyes and close-clamped, salient jaw no evidence was written of thedespair that swept over him in a wave and drowned hope. He had in thisbleak hour of reckoning the virtue of indomitable gameness.
"All right. You got me. Go to it, you red devils," he growled.
The Utes gloated over him in a silence more deadly than any verbalthreats. Their enemy had been delivered into their hands.