In Powers' old ranch house the night dragged along slowly to the grimwatcher, and the man huddled in the corner stirred uneasily and babbled,ofttimes crying out in horror at the vivid dreams of his disorderedmind. Pacing ceaselessly from window to window, crack to crack, whenthe moon came up, Mr. Connors scanned the bare, level plain with anxiouseyes, searching out the few covers and looking for dark spots on thedull gray sand. They never attacked at night, but still--. Through thevoid came the quavering call of a coyote, and he listened for the reply,which soon came from the black chaparral across the clearing. He knewwhere two of them were hiding, anyhow. Holden was muttering and triedto answer the calls, and Red looked at him for the hundredth time thatnight. He glanced out of the window again and noticed that there was aglow in the eastern sky, and shortly afterwards dawn swiftly developed.
Pouring the last few drops of the precious water between the woundedman's parched and swollen lips, he tossed the empty canteen from him andstood erect.
"Pore devil," he muttered, shaking his head sorrowfully, as he realizedthat Holden's delirium was getting worse all the time. "If you was allright we could give them wolves hell to dance to. Well, you won'tknow nothing about it if we go under, an' that's some consolation." Heexamined his rifle and saw that the Colt at his thigh was fully loadedand in good working order. "An' they'll pay us for their victory, byGod! They'll pay for it!" He stepped closer to the window, throwing therifle into the hollow of his arm. "It's about time for the rush; abouttime for the game--"
There was movement by that small chaparral to the south! To the eastsomething stirred into bounding life and action; a coyote calledtwice--and then they came, on foot and silently as fleeting shadows,leaning forward to bring into play every ounce of energy in the slim,red legs. Smoke filled the room with its acrid sting. The crashing ofthe Winchester, worked with wonderful speed and deadly accuracy by thebest rifle shot in the Southwest, brought the prostrate man to hisfeet in an instinctive response to the call to action, the necessity ofdefence. He grasped his Colt and stumbled blindly to a window to helpthe man who had stayed with him.
On Red's side of the house one warrior threw up his arms and fellforward, sprawling with arms and legs extended; another pitched to oneside and rolled over twice before he lay still; the legs of the thirdcollapsed and threw him headlong, bunched up in a grotesque pileof lifeless flesh; the fourth leaped high into the air and turned asomersault before he struck the sand, badly wounded, and out of thefight. Holden, steadying himself against the wall, leaned in a windowon the other side of the shack and emptied his Colt in a dazedmanner--doing his very best. Then the man with the rifle staggered backwith a muttered curse, his right arm useless, and dropped the weapon todraw his Colt with the other hand.
Holden shrieked once and sank down, wagging his head slowly from sideto side, blood oozing from his mouth and nostrils; and his companion,goaded into a frenzy of blood-lust and insane rage at the sight, threwhimself against the door and out into the open, to die under the clearsky, to go like the man he was if he must die. "Damn you! It'll cost youmore yet!" he screamed, wheeling to place his back against the wall.
The triumphant yells of the exultant savages were cut short and turnedto howls of dismay by a fusillade which thundered from the south where acrowd of hard-riding, hard-shooting cow-punchers tore out of the thicketlike an avalanche and swept over the open sand, yelling and cursing, andthen separated to go in hot pursuit of the sprinting Apaches. Some stoodup in their stirrups and fired down at a slant, making a short, choppingmotion with their heavy Colts; others leaned forward, far over the necksof their horses, and shot with stationary guns; while yet others, withreins dangling free, worked the levers of blue Winchesters so rapidlythat the flashes seemed to merge into a continuous flame.
"Thank God! Thank God--an' Hoppy!" groaned the man at the door of theshack, staggering forward to meet the two men who had lost no time inpursuit of the enemy, but had ridden straight to him.
"I was scared stiff you was done fer!" cried Hopalong, leaping off hishorse and shaking hands with his friend, whose hand-clasp was not asstrong as usual. "How's Holden?" he demanded, anxiously.
"He passed. It was a close--" began Red, weakly, but his foremaninterposed.
"Shut up, an' drink this!" ordered Buck, kindly but sternly. "We'll dothe talking for a while; you can tell us all about it later on. Why,_hullo_!" he cried as Lanky Smith and his two happy companions rode up."Reckon you must 'a' got them pickets."
"Shore we did! Stalked 'em on our bellies, didn't we, Skinny?" modestlyreplied Mr. Smith, the roping expert of the Bar-20. "Ropes an' clubbedguns did the rest. Anyhow, there was only two anywhere near the trail."
"We didn't see you," responded the foreman, tying the knot of a bandageon Mr. Connors' arm. "An' we looked sharp, too."
"Reckon we was hunting for more; we sort of forgot what you said aboutwaiting for you," Mr. Smith replied, grinning broadly.
"An' you've got a good memory now," smiled Mr. Peters.
"We didn't find no more, though," offered Mr. Pete Wilson, with graveregret. "An' we looked good, too. But we got Red, an' that's the wholegame. Red, you old son-of-a-gun, you can lick yore weight in powder!"
"It's too bad about Holden," muttered Red, sullenly.