They looked back with a cry of wonder coming from every throat; and that cry was taken up and echoed along the crest on the farther side. There they stood, man after man - Jack Hood, Hal Dunbar, and all their followers.
They had rushed the crest at last only to find their quarry gone, but now they stood careless of the fact that they were exposed to the guns of Reeve and Hunter, for Diablo had ventured a step along the trunk with his head stretched out, his legs bent, his whole body trembling with terror. The wind caught his mane and tail and set them flaring. He took another step and shuddered as the trunk, beneath his great weight, settled and quaked.
“Please send him back!” said Mary Hood, catching the arm of Bull Hunter.
“Send him back,” shouted Hal Dunbar, “and we’ll stop the chase here. I didn’t know such horses were ever bred!”
“How can he turn and go back?” called Bull Hunter in answer. “Will you let me try to help him across that tree, Dunbar?”
“Yes,” he answered.
Friends and enemies, they stood ranged on either side of the gorge and watched the giant stallion’s effort to gain his master back. Each step he made in mortal terror, and yet he kept on.
Bull Hunter waited for no second permission. He was instantly at the far end of the log, and at his call the gallant horse pricked his ears. They flicked back again the next moment as a gust of wind nearly knocked him from his position. But he steadied himself and made the next step. But now the trunk grew smaller and therefore less steady, and moreover, the central depth of the cañon was straight beneath him.
Then Bull Hunter stepped out on the log. His own weight helped to make the trunk less steady, but the moral effect of his coming would more than counterbalance that. Standing straight up, he placed himself in mortal danger, for the jar of one false step on the part of the horse would kill his master as well as himself. In appreciation of what was happening, Mary Hood covered her eyes, and a deep-throated murmur of applause came from the followers of Hal Dunbar on the farther side.
With short, trembling steps the big stallion moved along the trunk, and now Bull Hunter met him midway over the chasm and with his outstretched hand caught the reins close to the bit. The ears of Diablo quivered forward in recognition of this assistance. Though the powerful hand of Bull Hunter was useless, practically, to steady the great bulk of the horse, the confidence which he gave was enough to make Diablo straighten and step forward with a greater surety.
Within a yard of safety, a rear hoof slipped violently from the curved surface of the trunk, and a groan came from the anxious watchers on either side of the gulch. They had been mortal enemies the minute before. Now the heroism of the horse gave them one common interest, and they forgot all else.
The groan changed to a great gasping breath of relief as Diablo, quaking through every limb, steadied himself on the verge of reeling from the tree trunk. Here the hand and voice of Bull Hunter saved him indeed. Another step and he was on the level ground beyond, and Pete Reeve and Mary Hood and all the men of Hal Dunbar joined in one rousing shout of triumph. Diablo stood trembling beside his master, and Bull Hunter let his hand wander fondly over that beautiful head.
The noise fell away as Hal Dunbar stepped forward. He took off his hat and bowed across the chasm to Mary Hood.
“Mary,” he said, “I’ve followed you hard, but I followed for what I thought was your own good. I didn’t know Hunter then as I know him now. A man whose horse will risk death to follow him, and who will risk death to save his horse, can’t be much wrong at heart. Only one thing, Mary, I want you to know. I could have stopped you here; we had Reeve and Hunter under our guns - Diablo saved them. And I want to ask you one favor in return. Ask Bull Hunter to cross the gulch and speak with me on this side for a moment. I give him my solemn word of honor that no harm will come to him from my men.”
She shook her head. “I’ve tried you before, Hal, and I won’t trust you now. I can’t persuade Charlie to go - not a step.”
But Bull Hunter answered: “I don’t need persuading. I’ll meet you on that side, Dunbar.”
There was a faint cry from Mary Hood, but the big man stepped quietly onto the log and recrossed the chasm. A moment later he stood face to face with Hal Dunbar, and a murmur of awe passed over Dunbar’s men. For they saw that for the first time their “big boss” was matched against a man who was his equal in size and in apparent strength.
Pete Reeve had drawn back into the shelter of a great ragged rock jutting from the mountainside, and now he called from his concealment: “I’m on guard, Dunbar. The first crooked step you take or the first suspicious move you make, I’ll shoot and shoot to kill. You may drop Bull Hunter, but you’ll never live to talk about it!”
Hal Dunbar bowed in mock courtesy. He had drawn Hunter aside so that their voices could not be heard by the others when they were lowered to a whispering compass.
“Dunbar,” said his rival earnestly, “you’ve played a fair game and a square game to-day, and I’m thanking you. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’d like to shake hands. Are you willing?”
The smile which Hal Dunbar turned on him did not falter in the slightest, but what he said was: “Hunter, I hate the ground you walk on. And there’s only one thing that keeps me from finishing you to-day. It’s not the gun of Pete Reeve. It’s the fact that Mary Hood is watching us.That’s why I smile, Hunter, but I’m cursing you inside.”
Bull Hunter shrugged his shoulders; there was no other answer to be made.
“I haven’t asked you over here to make friends,” said Hal Dunbar; “and you can rest content that there’ll never be rest for either of us until one of us is dead and the other is safely married to Mary Hood. Just now she’s had her head turned by you; a little later it may be my turn.”
“That turn won’t come,” answered Bull, unshaken by the quiver of hatred that ran through the voice of the other. “She’ll be married to me by to-morrow night.”
Hal Dunbar closed his eyes as though a flash of sunlight had blinded him. Then he looked out again from beneath puckered brows.
“Tell me, Hunter,” he said, “what’ll be the outcome of that marriage? You may be happy with her for a few days, but how long d’you think it will last when you and she have to run through the mountains to keep clear of the law that follows you? Have you thought of that? And are you going to drag her with you and spoil her life because of this selfish thing you call your love for her?”
Bull Hunter paled. “I am not a very wise man, Dunbar,” he said, “and I may be wrong and you may be right, but it seems to me that if a man and a woman love each other enough they have the right to take some chances.”
“And if you have children?” asked Dunbar, still smiling and still savage.
Bull Hunter sighed. “I don’t know,” he said.
“That’s why I’ve asked you to come and talk with me. I tell you what I can do - I have a little weight with the governor of the State. He needs financial support now and then and - but it’s no use going into politics. The short of it is that the governor will do pretty much what I want him to do. Well, Hunter, suppose I were to ask him for a pardon for you; and for your friend Pete Reeve as well? Suppose I were to do that and leave you free to marry Mary Hood and settle down where you please and live your own happy lives?”
“If you did that,” said Bull Hunter gravely, “You’d be the finest man that ever lived.”
“But I’m not the finest. I want to know if it’s worth taking a risk to get a pardon for yourself and Reeve?”
“Any risk in the world.”