CHAPTER XXVII
THE FIGHT
"The boss is sure a she-wolf at playin' a lone hand," growled Barkwell,shortly after dusk, to Jud Weaver, the straw boss. "Seems he thinks hisfriends is delicate ornaments which any use would bust to smithereens.Here's his outfit layin' around, bitin' their finger nails with ongwee an'pinin' away to slivers yearnin' to get into the big meal-lee, an' himracin' an' tearin' around the country fightin' it out by his lonesome. Icall it rank selfishness!"
"He sure ought to have give us a chancst to claw the hair outen thatdamned Corrigan feller!" complained Weaver. "In some ways, though, I'msorta glad the damned mine was blew up. 'Firebrand' would have sure gota-hold of her some day, an' then we'd be clawin' at the bowels of theearth instid of galivantin' around on our cayuses like gentlemen. I reckonthings is all for the best."
The two had come in from the river range ostensibly to confer withTrevison regarding their work, but in reality to satisfy their curiosityover Trevison's movements. There was a deep current of concern for himunder their accusations.
They had found the ranchhouse dark and deserted. But the office door wasopen and they had entered, prepared supper, ate with a more than ordinarymingling of conversation with their food, and not lighting the lamps hadgone out on the gallery for a smoke.
"He ain't done any sleepin' to amount to much in the last forty-eighthours, to my knowin'," remarked Barkwell; "unless he's done his sleepin'on the run--an' that ain't in no ways a comfortable way. He's sure to bedriftin' in here, soon."
"This here country's goin' to hell, certain!" declared Weaver, after anhour of silence. "She's gettin' too eastern an' flighty. Railroads an'dams an' hotels with bath tubs for every six or seven rooms, an'resterawnts with filleedegree palms an' leather chairs an' slick eats iseatin' the gizzard outen her. Railroads is all right in their place--whichis where folks ain't got no cayuses to fork an' therefore has to hoofit--or--or ride the damn railroad."
"Correct!" agreed Barkwell; "she's a-goin' the way Rome went--anBabylone--an' Cincinnati--after I left. She runs to a pussy-cafearistocracy--_an'_ napkins."
"She'll be plumb ruined--follerin' them foreign styles. The Uhmericanpeople ain't got no right to adopt none of them new-fangled notions."Weaver stared glumly into the darkening plains.
They aired their discontent long. Directed at the town it relieved thepressure of their resentment over Trevison's habit of depending uponhimself. For, secretly, both were interested admirers of Manti's growingimportance.
Time was measured by their desires. Sometime before midnight Barkwell gotup, yawned and stretched.
"Sleep suits me. If 'Firebrand' ain't reckonin' on a guardian, I ain'tsurprisin' him none. He's mighty close-mouthed about his doin's, anyway."
"You're shoutin'. I ain't never seen a man any stingier about hidin' awayhis doin's. He just nacherly hawgs all the trouble."
Weaver got up and sauntered to the far end of the gallery, leaning far outto look toward Manti. His sharp exclamation brought Barkwell leaping tohis side, and they both watched in perplexity a faint glow in the sky inthe direction of the town. It died down as they watched.
"Fire--looks like," Weaver growled. "We're always too late to horn in onany excitement."
"Uh, huh," grunted Barkwell. He was staring intently at the plains,faintly discernable in the starlight. "There's horses out there, Jud!Three or four, an' they're comin' like hell!"
They slipped off the gallery into the shadow of some trees, bothinstinctively feeling of their holsters. Standing thus they waited.
The faint beat of hoofs came unmistakably to them. They grew louder,drumming over the hard sand of the plains, and presently four dark figuresloomed out of the night and came plunging toward the gallery. They came toa halt at the gallery edge, and were about to dismount when Barkwell'svoice, cold and truculent, issued from the shadow of the trees:
"What's eatin' you guys?"
There was a short, pregnant silence, and then one of the men laughed.
"Who are you?" He urged his horse forward. But he was brought to a quickhalt when Barkwell's voice came again:
"Talk from where you are!"
"That goes," laughed the man. "Trevison here?"
"What you wantin' of him?"
"Plenty. We're deputies. Trevison burned the courthouse and the banktonight--and killed Braman. We're after him."
"Well, he ain't here." Barkwell laughed. "Burned the courthouse, did he?An' the bank? An' killed Braman? Well, you got to admit that's a prettygood night's work. An' you're wantin' him!" Barkwell's voice leaped; hespoke in short, snappy, metallic sentences that betrayed passion longrestrained, breaking his self-control. "You're deputies, eh? Corrigan'swhelps! Sneaks! Coyotes! Well, you slope--you hear? When I count three, Idown you! One! Two! Three!"
His six-shooter stabbed the darkness at the last word. And at his sideWeaver's pistol barked viciously. But the deputies had started at the word"One," and though Barkwell, noting the scurrying of their horses, cut thefinal words sharply, the four figures were vague and shadowy when thefirst pistol shot smote the air. Not a report floated back to the ears ofthe two men. They watched, with grim pouts on their lips, until the menvanished in the star haze of the plains. Then Barkwell spoke, raucously:
"Well, we've broke in the game, Jud. We're Simon-pure outlaws--like ourboss. I got one of them scum--I seen him grab leather. We'll all get in,now. They're after our boss, eh? Well, damn 'em, we'll show 'em! They'seight of the boys on the south fork. You get 'em, bring 'em here an' getrifles. I'll hit the breeze to the basin an' rustle the others!" He wasrunning at the last word, and presently two horses raced out of the corralgates, clattered past the bunk-house and were swallowed in the vast, blackspace.
Half an hour later the entire outfit--twenty men besides Barkwell andWeaver--left the ranchhouse and spread, fan-wise, over the plains west ofManti.
* * * * *
They lost all sense of time. Several of them had ridden to Manti, making around of the places that were still open, but had returned, with no wordof Trevison. Corrigan had claimed to have seen him. But then, a man toldhis questioner, Corrigan claimed Trevison had choked the banker to death.He could believe both claims, or neither. So far as the man himself wasconcerned, he was not going to commit himself. But if Trevison had donethe job, he'd done it well. The seekers after information rode out ofManti on the run. At some time after midnight the entire outfit wasgrouped near Clay Levins' house.
They held a short conference, and then Barkwell rode forward and hammeredon the door of the cabin.
"We're wantin' Clay, ma'am," said Barkwell in answer to the scared inquirythat filtered through the closed door. "It's the Diamond K outfit."
"What do you want him for?"
"We was thinkin' that mebbe he'd know where 'Firebrand' is. 'Firebrand' issort of lost, I reckon."
The door flew open and Mrs. Levins, like a pale ghost, appeared in theopening. "Trevison and Clay left here tonight. I didn't look to see whattime. Oh, I hope nothing has happened to them!"
They quieted her fears and fled out into the plains again, chargingthemselves with stupidity for not being more diplomatic in dealing withMrs. Levins. During the early hours of the morning they rode again to theDiamond K ranchhouse, thinking that perhaps Trevison had slipped by themand returned. But Trevison had not returned, and the outfit gathered inthe timber near the house in the faint light of the breaking dawn,disgusted, their horses jaded.
"It's mighty hard work tryin' to be an outlaw in this damned dude-riddencountry," wailed the disappointed Weaver. "Outlaws usual have a den or acave or a mountain fastness, or somethin', anyhow--accordin' to all theliterchoor I've read on the subject. If 'Firebrand's' got one, he's mightybashful about mentionin' it."
"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Barkwell, weakly. "My brains is sure ready for themourners! Where's 'Firebrand'? Why, where would you expect a man to bethat'd burned up a courthouse an' a bank an' salivated a banker? He'd be
hidin' out, wouldn't he, you mis'able box-head! Would he come driftin'back to the home ranch, an' come out when them damn deputies come along,bowin' an' scrapin' an' sayin': 'I'm here, gentlemen--I've been waitin'for you to come an' try rope on me, so's you'd be sure to get a good fit!'Would he? You're mighty right he--wouldn't! He'd be populatin' that oldpueblo that he's been tellin' me for years would make a good fort!" Hishorse leaped as he drove the spurs in, cruelly, but at the distance of ahundred yards he was not more than a few feet in advance of theothers--and they, disregarding the rules of the game--were trying to passhim.
* * * * *
"There ain't a bit of sense of takin' any risk," objected Levins from thesecurity of the communal chamber, as Trevison peered cautiously around acorner of the adobe house. "It'd be just the luck of one of them crittersif they'd pot you."
"I'm not thinking of offering myself as a target for them," the otherlaughed. "They're still there," he added a minute later as he stepped intothe chamber. "Them shooting you as they did, without warning, seems toindicate that they've orders to wipe us out, if possible. They'redeputies. I bumped into Corrigan right after I left the bank building, andI suppose he has set them on us."
"I reckon so. Seems it ain't possible, though," Levins added, doubtfully."They was here before you come. Your Nigger horse ain't takin' no dust. Ireckon you didn't stop anywheres?"
"At the Bar B." Trevison made this admission with some embarrassment.
But Levins did not reproach him--he merely groaned, eloquently.
Trevison leaned against the opening of the chamber. His muscles ached; hewas in the grip of a mighty weariness. Nature was protesting against thegreat strain that he had placed upon her. But his jaws set as he felt theflesh of his legs quivering; he grinned the derisive grin of the fighterwhose will and courage outlast his physical strength. He felt a pulse ofcontempt for himself, and mingling with it was a strange elation--thethought that Rosalind Benham had strengthened his failing body, hadprovided it with the fuel necessary to keep it going for hours yet--as itmust. He did not trust himself to yield to his passions as he stoodthere--that might have caused him to grow reckless. He permitted theweariness of his body to soothe his brain; over him stole a great calm. Heassured himself that he could throw it off any time.
But he had deceived himself. Nature had almost reached the limit ofeffort, and the inevitable slow reaction was taking place. The tired bodycould be forced on for a while yet, obeying the lethargic impulses of anequally tired brain, but the break would come. At this moment he wasoppressed with a sense of the unreality of it all. The pueblo seemed likean ancient city of his dreams; the adobe houses details of a weirdphantasmagoria; his adventures of the past forty-eight hours a successionof wild imaginings which he now reviewed with a sort of detached interest,as though he had watched them from afar.
The moonlight shone on him; he heard Levins exclaim sharply: "Your arm'sbusted, ain't it?"
He started, swayed, and caught himself, laughing lowly, guiltily, for herealized that he had almost fallen asleep, standing. He held the arm up tothe moonlight, examining it, dropping it with a deprecatory word. Hesettled against the wall near the opening again.
"Hell!" declared Levins, anxiously, "you're all in!"
Trevison did not answer. He stole along the outside wall of the adobehouse and peered out into the plains. The men were still where they hadbeen when the shot had been fired, and the sight of them brought a coldgrin to his face. He backed away from the corner, dropped to his stomachand wriggled his way back to the corner, shoving his rifle in front ofhim. He aimed the weapon deliberately, and pulled the trigger. At theflash a smothered cry floated up to him, and he drew back, the thud ofbullets against the adobe walls accompanying him.
"That leaves seven, Levins," he said grimly. "Looks like my trip to SantaFe is off, eh?" he laughed. "Well, I've always had a yearning to bebesieged, and I'll make it mighty interesting for those fellows. Do youthink you can cover that slope, so they can't get up there while I'mreconnoitering? It would be certain death for me to stick my head aroundthat corner again."
At Levins' emphatic affirmative he was helped to the shelter of a recess,from where he had a view of the slope, though himself protected by acorner of one of the houses; placed a rifle in the wounded man's hands,and carrying his own, vanished into one of the dark passages that weavedthrough the pueblo.
He went only a short distance. Emerging from an opening in one of theadobe houses he saw a parapet wall, sadly crumpled in spots, facing theplains, and he dropped to his hands and knees and crept toward it,secreting himself behind it and prodding the wall cautiously with thebarrel of his rifle until he found a joint in the stone work where theadobe mud was rotted. He poked the muzzle of the rifle through thecrevice, took careful aim, and had the satisfaction of hearing a savagecurse in the instant following the flash. He threw himself flatimmediately, listening to the spatter and whine of the bullets of thevolley that greeted his shot. They kept it up long--but when there was amomentary cessation he crept back to the entrance of the adobe house,entered, followed another passage and came out on the ledge farther alongthe side of the pueblo. He halted in a dense shadow and looked toward thespot where the men had been. They had vanished.
There was nothing to do but to wait, and he sank behind a huge block ofstone in an angle of the ledge, noting with satisfaction that he could seethe slope that he had set Levins to guard.
"I'm the boss of this fort if I don't go to sleep," he told himself grimlyas he stretched out. He lay there, watching, while the moonlight faded,while a gray streak in the east slowly widened, presaging the dawn.Stretched flat, his aching muscles welcoming the support of the cool stoneof the ledge, he had to fight off the drowsiness that assailed him.
An hour dragged by. He knew the deputies were watching, no doubt havingseparated to conceal themselves behind convenient boulders that dotted theplains at the foot of the slope. Or perhaps while he had been in thepassages of the pueblo, changing his position, some of them might havestolen to the numerous crags and outcroppings of rock at the base of thepueblo. They might now be massing for a rush up the slope. But he doubtedthey would risk the latter move, for they knew that he must be on thealert, and they had cause to fear his rifle.
Once he rested his head on his extended right arm, and the contact was soagreeable that he allowed it to remain there--long. He caught himself intime; in another second he would have been too late. He saw the figure ofa man on the slope a foot or two below the crest. He was flat on hisstomach, no doubt having crept there during the minutes that Trevison hadbeen enjoying his rest, and at the instant Trevison saw him he was raisinghis rifle, directing it at the recess where Levins had been left, onguard.
Trevison was wide awake now, and his marksmanship as deadly as ever. Hewaited until the man's rifle came to a level. Then his own weapon spatviciously. The man rose to his knees, reeling. Another rifle cracked--fromthe recess where Levins was concealed, this time--and the man sank to thedust of the slope, rolling over and over until he reached the bottom,where he stretched out and lay prone. There was a shout of rage from asection of rock-strewn level near the foot of the slope, and Trevison'slips curled with satisfaction. The second shot had told him that a fear hehad entertained momentarily was unfounded--Levins was apparently quitealive.
He raised himself cautiously, backed away from the rock behind which hehad been concealed, and wheeled, intending to join Levins. A faint soundreached his ears from the plains, and he faced around again, to see agroup of horsemen riding toward the pueblo. They were coming fast, racingahead of a dust cloud, and were perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. ButTrevison knew them, and stepped boldly out to the edge of the stone ledgewaving his hat to them, laughing full-throatedly, his voice vibrating alittle as he spoke:
"Good old Barkwell!"
* * * * *
"That's him!"
Barkwell pulled his horse to
a sliding halt as he saw the figure on thepueblo, outlined distinctly in the clear white light of the dawn.
"He's all right!" he declared to the others as they followed his exampleand drew their beasts down. "Them's some of the scum that's been afterhim," he added as several horsemen swept around the far side of thepueblo. "It was them we heard shootin'." The outfit sat silent on theirhorses and watched the men ride over the plains toward another group ofhorsemen that the Diamond K men had observed some time before ridingtoward the pueblo,
"Yep!" Barkwell said, now; "that other bunch is deputies, too. It's mightyplain. This bunch rounded up 'Firebrand' an' sent some one back forreinforcements." He swept the Diamond K outfit with a snarling smile."They're goin' to need 'em, too! I reckon we'd better wait for them toplay their hand. It's about a stand off in numbers. We don't stand noslack, boys. We're outlawed already, from the ruckus of last night, an' ifthey start anything we've got to wipe 'em out! You heard 'em shootin' atthe boss, an' they ain't no pussy-kitten bunch! I'll do the gassin'--ifthere's any to be done--an' when I draw, you guys do your damnedest!"
The outfit set itself to wait. Over on the edge of the pueblo they couldsee Trevison. He was bending over something, and when they saw him stoopand lift the object, heaving it to his shoulder and walking away with it,a sullen murmur ran over the outfit, and lips grew stiff and white withrage.
"It's Clay Levins, boys!" said Barkwell. "They've plugged him! Do youreckon we've got to go back to Levins' shack an' tell his wife that we letthem skunks get away after makin' orphants of her kids?"
"I'm jumpin'!" shrieked Jud Weaver, his voice coming chokingly withpassion. "I ain't waitin' one damned minute for any palaver! Either themdeputies is wiped out, or I am!" He dug the spurs into his horse, drawinghis six-shooter as the animal leaped.
Weaver's horse led the outfit by only three or four jumps, and they sweptover the level like a devastating cyclone, the spiral dust cloud that rosebehind them following them lazily, sucked along by the wind of theirpassing.
The group of deputies had halted; they were sitting tense and silent intheir saddles when the Diamond K outfit came up, slowing down as they drewnearer, and halting within ten feet of the others, spreading out in acrude semi-circle, so that each man had an unobstructed view of thedeputies.
Barkwell had no chance to talk. Before he could get his breath afterpulling his horse down, Weaver, his six-shooter in hand, its muzzledirected fairly at Gieger, who was slightly in advance of his men, fumedforth:
"What in hell do you-all mean by tryin' to herd-ride our boss? Talk fast,you eagle-beaked turkey buzzard, or I salivates you rapid!"
The situation was one of intense delicacy. Gieger might have averted thethreatening clash with a judicious use of soft, placating speech. But itpleased him to bluster.
"We are deputies, acting under orders from the court. We are after amurderer, and we mean to get him!" he said, coldly.
"Deputies! Hell!" Barkwell's voice rose, sharply scornful and mocking."Deputies! Crooks! Gun-fighters! Pluguglies!" His eyes, bright, alert,gleaming like a bird's, were roving over the faces in the group ofdeputies. "A damn fine bunch of guys to represent the law! There's DakotaDick, there! Tinhorn, rustler! There's Red Classen! Stage robber! An'Pepper Ridgely, a plain, ornery thief! An' Kid Dorgan, a sneakin' killer!An' Buff Keller, an' Andy Watts, an' Pig Mugley, an'--oh, hell! Deputies!Law!----Ah--hah!"
One of the men had reached for his holster. Weaver's gun barked twice andthe man pitched limply forward to his horse's neck. Other weapons flashed;the calm of the early morning was rent by the hoarse, guttural cries ofmen in the grip of the blood-lust, the sustained and venomous popping ofpistols, the queer, sodden impact of lead against flesh, the terror-snortsof horses, and the grunts of men, falling heavily.
* * * * *
A big man in khaki, loping his horse up the slope of an arroyo half a miledistant, started at the sound of the first shot and raced over the crest.He pulled the horse to an abrupt halt as his gaze swept the plains infront of him. He saw riderless horses running frantically away from asmoking blot, he saw the blot streaked with level, white smoke-spurts thatballooned upward quickly; he heard the dull, flat reports that followedthe smoke-spurts.
It seemed to be over in an instant. The blot split up, galloping horsesand yelling men burst out of it. The big man had reached the crest of thearroyo at the critical second in which the balance of victory waversuncertainly. With thrusting chin, lips in a hideous pout, and with sullen,blazing eyes, he watched the battle go against him. Fifteen cowboys--hecounted them, deliberately, coldly, despite the rage-mania that had seizedhim--were spurring after eight other men whom he knew for his own. As hewatched he saw two of these tumble from their horses. And at a distance hesaw the loops of ropes swing out to enmesh four more--who were thrown anddragged; he watched darkly as the remaining two raised their hands abovetheir heads. Then his lips came out of their pout and were wreathed in abitter snarl.
"Licked!" he muttered. "Twelve put out of business. But there's thirtymore--if the damn fools have come in to town! That's two to one!" Helaughed, wheeled his horse toward Manti, rode a few feet down the slope ofthe arroyo, halted and sat motionless in the saddle, looking back. Hesmiled with cold satisfaction. "Lucky for me that cinch strap broke," hesaid.
* * * * *
Trevison was placing Levins' limp form across the saddle on Nigger's backwhen the faint morning breeze bore to his ears the report of Weaver'spistol. A rattling volley followed the first report, and Trevison ledNigger close to the edge of the ledge in time to observe the battle asCorrigan had seen it. He hurried Nigger down the slope, but he had to becareful with his burden. Reaching the level he lifted Levins off, laid himgently on the top of a huge flat rock, and then leaped into the saddle andsent Nigger tearing over the plains toward the scene of the battle.
It was over when he arrived. A dozen men were lying in the tall grass.Some were groaning, writhing; others were quiet and motionless. Four orfive of them were arrayed in chaps. His lips grimmed as his gaze sweptthem. He dismounted and went to them, one after another. He stooped longover one.
"They've got Weaver," he heard a voice say. And he started and lookedaround, and seeing no one near, knew it was his own voice that he heard.It was dry and light--as a man's voice might be who has run far and fast.He stood for a while, looking down at Weaver. His brain was reeling, as ithad reeled over on the ledge of the pueblo a few minutes before, when hehad discovered a certain thing. It was not a weakness; it was a surge ofreviving rage, an accession of passion that made his head swim with itspotency, made his muscles swell with a strength that he had not known formany hours. Never in his life had he felt more like crying. His emotionsseared his soul as a white-hot iron sears the flesh; they burned into him,scorching his pity and his impulses of mercy, withering them, blightingthem. He heard himself whining sibilantly, as he had heard boys whine whenfighting, with eagerness and lust for blows. It was the insensate, ragingfury of the fight-madness that had gripped him, and he suddenly yielded toit and raised his head, laughing harshly, with panting, labored breath.
Barkwell rode up to him, speaking hoarsely: "We come pretty near wipin''em out, 'Firebrand!'"
He looked up at his foreman, and the latter's face blanched. "God!" hesaid. He whispered to a cowboy who had joined him: "The boss is prettynear loco--looks like!"
"They've killed Weaver," muttered Trevison. "He's here. They killed Clay,too--he's down on a rock near the slope." He laughed, and tightened hisbelt. The record book which he had carried in his waistband all alonginterfered with this work, and he drew it out, throwing it from him. "Claywas worth a thousand of them!"
Barkwell got down and seized the book, watching Trevison closely.
"Look here, Boss," he said, as Trevison ran to his horse and threw himselfinto the saddle; "you're bushed, mighty near--"
If Trevison heard his first words he had paid no a
ttention to them. Hecould not have heard the last words, for Nigger had lunged forward,running with great, long, catlike leaps in the direction of Manti.
"Good God!" yelled Barkwell to some of the men who had ridden up; "thedamn fool is goin' to town! They'll salivate him, sure as hell! Some ofyou stay here--two's enough! The rest of you come along with me!"
They were after Trevison within a few seconds, but the black horse was farahead, running without hitch or stumble, as straight toward Manti as hiswilling muscles and his loyal heart could take him.
* * * * *
Corrigan had seen the black bolt that had rushed toward him out of thespot where the blot had been. He cursed hoarsely and drove the spurs deepinto the flanks of his horse, and the animal, squealing with pain andfury, leaped down the side of the arroyo, crossed the bottom in two orthree bounds and stretched away toward Manti.
A cold fear had seized the big man's heart. It made a sweat break out onhis forehead, it caused his hand to tremble as he flung it around to hiship in search of his pistol. He tried to shake the feeling off, but itclung insistently to him, making him catch his breath. His horse was big,rangy, and strong, but he forced it to such a pace during the first mileof the ride that he could feel its muscles quivering under the saddleskirts. And he looked back at the end of the mile, to see the black horseat about the same distance from him; possibly the distance had beenshortened. It seemed to Corrigan that he had never seen a horse thattraveled as smoothly and evenly as the big black, or that ran with aslittle effort. He began to loathe the black with an intensity equaled onlyby that which he felt for his rider.
He held his lead for another mile. Glancing back a little later he notedwith a quickening pulse that the distance had been shortened by severalhundred feet, and that the black seemed to be traveling with as littleeffort as ever. Also, for the first time, Corrigan noticed the presence ofother riders, behind Trevison. They were topping a slight rise at theinstant he glanced back, and were at least a mile behind his pursuer.
At first, mingled with his fear, Corrigan had felt a slight disgust forhimself in yielding to his sudden panic. He had never been in the habit ofrunning. He had been as proud of his courage as he had been of hiscleverness and his keenness in planning and plotting. It had been hismental boast that in every crisis his nerve was coldest. But now he nurseda vagrant, furtive hope that waiting for him at Manti would be some ofthose men whom he had hired at his own expense to impersonate deputies.The presence of the hope was as inexplicable as the fear that had set himto running from Trevison. Two or three weeks ago he would have faced bothTrevison and his men and brazened it out. But of late a growing dread ofthe man had seized him. Never before had he met a man who refused to bebeaten, or who had fought him as recklessly and relentlessly.
He jeered at himself as he rode, telling himself that when Trevison gotnear enough he would stand and have it out with him--for he knew that thefight had narrowed down between them until it was as Trevison had said,man to man--but as he rode his breath came faster, his backward glancesgrew more frequent and fearful, and the cold sweat on his forehead grewclammy. Fear, naked and shameful, had seized him.
* * * * *
Behind him, lean, gaunt, haggard; seeing nothing but the big man ahead ofhim, feeling nothing but an insane desire to maim or slay him, rode a manwho in forty-eight hours had been transformed from a frank, guileless,plain-speaking human, to a rage-drunken savage--a monomaniac who, as heleaned over Nigger's mane, whispered and whined and mewed, as hisforebears, in some tropical jungle, voiced their passions when they setforth to slay those who had sought to despoil them.