CHAPTER XXIV
THE MASTER
It was noon by the sun when Hopalong and Red shook hands south of theold ford and the former turned to enter the brush. Hopalong was cooland ominously calm while his companion was the opposite. Red was franklysuspicious of the whole affair and nursed the private opinion that Mr.Elkins would lay in ambush and shoot his enemy down like a dog. And Redhad promised himself a dozen times that he would study the signs aroundthe scene of action if Hopalong should not come back, and take a keendelight, if warranted, in shooting Mr. Elkins full of holes with noregard for an even break. He was thinking the matter over as his friendbreasted the first line of brush and could not refrain from giving aslight warning. "Get him, Hoppy," he called, earnestly; "get him good.Let _him_ do some of the moving about. I'll be here waiting for you."
Hopalong smiled in reply and sprang forward, the leaves and branchesquickly shutting him from Red's sight. He had worked out his plan ofaction the night before when he was alone and the world was still, andas soon as he had it to his satisfaction he had dropped off to sleep aseasily as a child--it took more than gun-play to disturb his nerves.He glanced about him to make sure of his bearings and then struck on acurving line for the river. The first hundred yards were covered withspeed and then he began to move more slowly and with greater regard forcaution, keeping close to the earth and showing a marked preference forlow ground. Sky-lines were all right in times of peace, but under thepresent conditions they promised to become unhealthy. His eyes and earstold him nothing for a quarter of an hour, and then he suddenly stoppedshort and crouched as he saw the plain trail of a man crossing his owndirection at a right angle. From the bottom of one of the heel printsa crushed leaf was slowly rising back towards its original position,telling him how new the trail was; and as if this were not enough forhis trained mind he heard a twig snap sharply as he glanced along theline of prints. It sounded very close, and he dropped instantly to oneknee and thought quickly. Why had the other left so plain a trail, whyhad he reached up and broken twigs that projected above his head as hepassed? Why had he kicked aside a small stone, leaving a patch of moist,bleached grass to tell where it had lain? Elkins had stumbled here, butthere were no toe marks to tell of it. Hopalong would not track, for hewas no assassin; but he knew that he would do if he were, and careless.The answer leaped to his suspicious mind like a flash, and he did notcare to waste any time in trying to determine whether or not Elkins wascapable of such a trick. He acted on the presumption that the trailhad been made plain for a good reason, and that not far ahead at somesuitable place,--and there were any number of such within a hundredyards,--the maker of the plain trail lay in wait. Smiling savagelyhe worked backward and turning, struck off in a circle. He had nocompunctions whatever now about shooting the other player of the game.It was not long before he came upon the same trail again and he startedanother circle. A bullet _zipped_ past his ear and cut a twig not twoinches from his head. He fired at the smoke as he dropped, and thenwriggled rapidly backward, keeping as flat to the earth as he could.Elkins had taken up his position in a thicket which stood in the centreof a level patch of sand in the old bed of the river,--the bed it hadused five years before and forsaken at the time of the big flood when itcut itself a new channel and made the U-bend which now surrounded thispiece of land on three sides. Even now, during the rainy season,the thicket which sheltered Mr. Elkins was frequently an island in asluggish, shallow overflow.
"Hole up, blast you!" jeered Hopalong, hugging the ground. The secondbullet from Mr. Elkins' gun cut another twig, this one just over hishead, and he laughed insolently. "I ain't ascared to do the moving,even if you are. Judging from the way you keep out o' sight the cannedoysters are in the can again. _I_ never did no ambushing, you coyote."
"You can't make remarks like that an' get away with 'em--I've knowed youtoo long," retorted Elkins, shifting quickly, and none too soon. "Youwent an' got Slim afore he was wide awake. I know _you_, all right."
Hopalong's surprise was but momentary, and his mind raced back over theyears. Who was this man Elkins, that he knew Slim Travennes? "Yo're aliar, Elkins, an' so was the man who told you that!"
"Call me Ewalt," jeered the other, nastily. "Nobody'll hear it, an'you'll not live to tell it. Ewalt, Tex Ewalt; call me that."
"So you've come back after all this time to make me get you, have you?Well, I ain't a-going to shoot no buttons off you _this_ time. I allusreckoned you learned something at Muddy Wells--but you'll learn ithere," Hopalong rejoined, sliding into a depression, and working withgreat caution towards the dry river bed, where fallen trees and hillocksof sand provided good cover in plenty. Everything was clear now anddespite the seriousness of the situation he could not repress a smileas he remembered vividly that day at the carnival when Tex Ewalt came totown with the determination to kill him and show him up as an imitation.His grievance against Elkins was petty when compared to that againstEwalt, and he began to force the issue. As he peered over a strandedlog he caught sight of his enemy disappearing into another part of thethicket, and two of his three shots went home. Elkins groaned with painand fear as he realized that his right knee-cap was broken and wouldmake him slow in his movements. He was lamed for life, even if he didcome out of the duel alive; lamed in the same way that Hopalong was--theaffliction he had made cruel sport of had come to him. But he had plentyof courage and he returned the fire with remarkable quickness, his twoshots sounding almost as one.
Hopalong wiped the blood from his cheek and wormed his way to anew place; when half way there he called out again, "How's yorehealth--Tex?" in mock sympathy.
Elkins lied manfully and when he looked to get in another shot his enemywas on the farther bank, moving up to get behind him. He did not knowHopalong's new position until he raised his head to glance down over thedried river bed, and was informed by a bullet that nicked his ear. Ashe ducked, another grazed his head, the third going wild. He hazarded areturn shot, and heard Hopalong's laugh ring out again.
"Like the story Lucas told, the best shot is going to win out this time,too," the Bar-20 man remarked, grimly. "You thought a game like thiswould give you some chance against a better shot, didn't you? You are afool."
"It ain't over yet, not by a damned sight!" came the retort.
"An' you thought you had a little the best of it if you stayed still an'let me do the moving, didn't you? You'll learn something before I getthrough with you: but it'll be too late to do you any good," Hopalongcalled, crouched below a hillock of sand so the other could not takeadvantage of the words and single him out for a shot.
"You can't learn me nothing, you assassin; I've got my eyes open, thistime." He knew that he had had them open before, and that Hopalong wasin no way an assassin; but if he could enrage his enemy and sting himinto some reflex carelessness he might have the last laugh.
Elkins' retort was wasted, for the sudden and unusual, although afamiliar sound, had caught Hopalong's ear and he was giving all hisattention to it. While he weighed it, his incredulity holding backthe decision his common sense was striving to give him, the noise grewlouder rapidly and common sense won out in a cry of warning an instantbefore a five-foot wall of brown water burst upon his sight, sweepingswiftly down the old, dry river bed; and behind it towered another andgreater wall. Tree trunks were dancing end over end in it as if theywere straws.
"Cloud-burst!" he yelled. "Run, Tex! Run for yore life! Cloud-burst upthe valley! Run, you fool; _Run_!"
Tex's sarcastic retort was cut short as he instinctively glanced north,and his agonized curse lashed Hopalong forward. "Can't run--knee cap'sbusted! Can't swim, can't do--ah, hell--!"
Hopalong saw him torn from his shelter and whisked down the ragingtorrent like an arrow from a bow. The Bar-20 puncher leaped from thebank, shot under the yellow flood and arose, gasping and choking manyyards downstream, fighting madly to get the muddy water out of histhroat and eyes. As he struck out with all his strength down thecurrent, he caught sight of Tex being torn from a ju
tting tree limb, andhe shouted encouragement and swam all the harder, if such a thingwere possible. Tex's course was checked for a moment by a boilingback-current and as he again felt the pull of the rushing streamHopalong's hand gripped his collar and the fight for safety began.Whirled against logs and stumps, drawn down by the weight of his clothesand the frantic efforts of Tex to grasp him--fighting the water andthe man he was trying to save at the same time, his head under wateras often as it was out of it, and Tex's vise-like fingers threateninghim--he headed for the west shore against powerful cross-currents thatmade his efforts seem useless. He seemed to get the worst of everybreak. Once, when caught by a friendly current, they were swung underan overhanging branch, but as Hopalong's hand shot up to grasp ita submerged bush caught his feet and pulled him under, and Tex'ssteel-like arms around his throat almost suffocated him before hemanaged to beat the other into insensibility and break the hold.
"I'll let you go!" he threatened; but his hand grasped the other'scollar all the tighter and his fighting jaw was set with greaterdetermination than ever.
They shot out into the main stream, where the U-bend channel joined theshort-cut, and it looked miles wide to the exhausted puncher. He wasfighting only on his will now. He would not give up, though he scarcecould lift an arm, and his lungs seemed on fire. He did not know whetherTex was dead or alive, but he would get the body ashore with him, orgo down trying. He bumped into a log and instinctively grasped it. Itturned, and when he came up again it was bobbing five feet ahead of him.Ages seemed to pass before he flung his numb arm over it and floatedwith it. He was not alone in the flood; a coyote was pushing steadilyacross his path towards the nearer bank, and on a gliding tree trunkcrouched a frightened cougar, its ears flattened and its sharp clawsdug solidly through the bark. Here and there were cattle and a snakewriggled smoothly past him, apparently as much at home in the water asout of it. The log turned again and he just managed to catch hold of itas he came up for the second time.
Things were growing black before his eyes and strange, weird ideas andimages floated through his brain. When he regained some part of hissenses he saw ahead of him a long, curling crest of yellow water andfoam, and he knew, vaguely, that it was pouring over a bar. The nextinstant his feet struck bottom and he fought his way blindly and slowly,with the stubborn determination of his kind, towards the brush-coveredpoint twenty feet away.
When he opened his eyes and looked around he became conscious ofexcruciating pains and he closed them again to rest. His outflung handstruck something that made him look around again, and he saw Tex Ewalt,face down at his side. He released his grasp on the other's collar andslowly the whole thing came to him, and then the necessity for action,unless he wished to lose what he had fought so hard to save.
Anything short of the iron man Tex had become would have been deadbefore this or have been finished by the mauling he now got fromHopalong. But Tex groaned, gurgled a curse, and finally opened his eyesupon his rescuer, who sank back with a grunt of satisfaction. Slowly hisintelligence returned as he looked steadily into Hopalong's eyes, andwith it came the realization of a strange truth: he did not hate thisman at all. Months of right living, days and nights of honest laborshoulder to shoulder with men who respected him for his ability andaccepted him as one of themselves, had made a new man of him, althoughthe legacy of hatred from the old Tex had disguised him from himselfuntil now; but the new Tex, battered, shot-up, nearly drowned, looked athis old enemy and saw him for the man he really was. He smiled faintlyand reached out his hand.
"Cassidy, yo're the boss," he said. "Shake."
They shook.
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