This was the heart-breaking moment of the escape for the two. They gave each other one pale-faced glance, and then their horses dipped down the bank. They struck the water with a splashing of spray. Still, the blinding mist dashed up against their faces as the animals struggled through the shallow current.
At last, firm ground was under the hoofs of their horses. They could see again, and above them, dancing on the top of the bank, they saw an Indian boy of thirteen years or more, with a bow in his hand—dancing from side to side, his arms outspread to stop them, and his voice raised to an anxious scream as he called for help.
Help was coming up to him rapidly, moreover. The boys from the swimming pool, flashing ashore and catching up bows, stones, little javelins, went leaping up the bank and then racing for the danger point.
Torridon knew those youngsters well enough and dreaded them. They had no war bows, to be sure, but they were accurate to a wonderful degree with their play weapons. And a well-placed shaft might kill. Those stones and javelins, too, would make a formidable shower.
But now Ashur and the pinto were struggling up the bank.
They gained the ridge. Torridon pointed his double-barreled pistol at the young Cheyenne, and he turned and bolted with a yell of terror, dodging from side to side to avoid the expected bullet.
Backward glanced Torridon, and he saw the seven racers coming in a wide-flung line, and their shouting went before them, cutting the air with a sound more dreadful than the whistling of whips.
Those shouts had sent the alarm into the village. Other men and boys were darting out from the teepees. Still others were seen rushing to catch horses.
And the heart of Torridon sank in him. For Ashur he had no fear. But how could Nancy on her pinto outride these savage horsemen?
The cloud of youths came like a torrent at them. An arrow hissed past Torridon as he gave Ashur his head, and away they went across the plain, north, due north, where Roger Lincoln, in the dim distance, must be waiting for them according to his promise.
Heaven bring him close—Roger Lincoln and the magic of his long rifle.
The air was filled with the glancing points of javelins. Stones leaped still farther forward into the valley. Arrows arched bravely after them. But neither the pinto nor Ashur was so much as touched. Their speed was great, and the boys were overanxious and at too long a distance.
But that was a small consolation.
At the very first bound, the black stallion had drawn away from the little pinto and had to be pulled back. Running infinitely within his mighty strength, still he was able to keep the pony extended to the uttermost. He seemed to be floating along, and the little pinto was working with all its might.
Nancy, with the same anxious thought in her mind, looked up at Torridon with dread. But she made herself smile, and at that, the heart of Torridon swelled almost to bursting with pride in her courage, with love for her beauty, with pity for the terrible fate which he saw so close before them.
There would be no mercy for him on this second time when he tried to escape. They had spared him before, but now they had watched their best braves sickening, and they had attributed their fall to Torridon’s own malice. They would have his scalp and return with Ashur to the village.
As for Nancy? He dared not think of that.
A wild wave of noise broke over the nearer bank of the river. It seemed impossible that the Cheyennes should have crossed the water so quickly, but there they came, every one of the seven racers, still riding abreast in a line that flashed like polished metal in the sun.
Torridon looked back at them almost with exultation in their skill that was redoubling the speed of their horses. He had been among these people so long that, in spite of himself, some pride in their prowess could not be kept out of his mind.
He looked again at Nancy Brett. On her, more than on her horse depended the result of the race, and the first real hope came to Torridon when he saw that her pallor was decreasing, and the color beginning to flare up in her cheeks.
XI
After all, it is not altogether strength that rides a horse, but balance, spirit, rhythm—or otherwise the greatest jockeys would be those of the strongest hands. So Nancy Brett rode well, her heart in her work, her body light in the saddle, and the stout little Indian pony flying over the ground.
They held the rushing Cheyennes behind them. Aye, and then they began to draw away, slowly and surely. So that Torridon, looking to the west and seeing the sun declining with rapidity, laughed aloud in his joy. A trembling laughter, however, so close was his terror on the heels of his exultation.
“We’re winning, Nan!” he called to her. “They’re falling back! They’re falling back!”
She gave him a flashing smile, then returned seriously to her work, putting all her care into it—just a sufficient pull to keep up the pony’s head and make it run straight, and always with her eyes before her, if perchance dangerous holes should open in the ground, or to swerve from obvious soft spots.
He, watching her, gloried in her courage and in her spirit. And never had he loved her as he loved her then, when her good riding seemed about to win.
But when he looked back again, he saw that they no longer drew away; the Cheyennes stuck stubbornly at one distance behind them.
Then he remembered with a sinking heart what had been told him more than once before—that good riding on an Indian pony in time of need consists in torturing from the suffering little hardy creatures the last ounce of force. There was an old saying, also, that a horse that a white man had abandoned as useless from exhaustion would still carry a Mexican two days, and when the Mexican gave it up, an Indian could wring another week’s travel out of its pitiful bones and stumbling feet. So Torridon kept careful watch behind, never communicating his fear to the girl.
He saw the sweat beginning to run fast from the flanks of the little horse. Then the shoulders were varnished with foam, and foam also flew back from its mouth. If only he could have transferred by magic some of the supreme quality of Ashur to this short-legged running mate. For the lordly Ashur still floated serenely forward, careless, at ease, turning his proud head from side to side, seeming to mock the leagues before him, and the foolish pursuers.
The sun, too, seemed to stick at one place, in the west, refusing to descend lower, so that Torridon could believe the miracle in the Bible. To the slaughtered host, it must surely have seemed that the night would never come, as it seemed now to anxious Torridon.
When he looked back again, he told himself that the distance between them and the Indians was as great as ever, but he knew in his heart that it was not. The pursuers were gaining, little by little.
But it was no time to alarm the girl. She was riding well, closely, with all her attention and skill. Let the Cheyennes press still closer before she began to use the whip.
She would not waste attention, or run the risk of throwing her pony out of its stride by turning to look behind, but from time to time she flashed a glance at Torridon, as though reading the progress of the race in his face.
He knew he was growing pale. He tried to smile at her, and he knew that the smile was a ghastly mockery, because she blanched, and leaned lower over the saddle bows, trying to transfer her weight forward a little and so ease the running muscles of the horse.
At last, glancing back, the leaders of the Cheyennes seemed literally devouring the space left between them and the fugitives. And now into the lead two were racing.
They were well-mounted boys, scarcely established as warriors, but already known for their skill and their daring on the warpath. Light in the saddle, keen as hawks for their cruel work today, they were at their best, and they forged steadily into the lead until, at last, one of them yelled loudly in triumph, and the other, as though spurred on by the shouter, snatched out a heavy pistol and discharged it.