For the sun was just down. A pillar of golden fire streaked up the western sky, and, on either side of it, broad wings of crimson, feathered with purple cloud, stretched far north and south, where the horizon was all be-dimmed with soft, rich colors in a band that mounted from the dun-colored earth to the incredible green of the lower sky. And above this, still, there was the evening sky, half glorious with day, and half darkened by night.
But out of that beauty rode a level rank of warriors, each a tower of strength, each terrible, now, to avenge the blood of the dead men. Seven noble Cheyennes, the glory of their race. He knew Standing Bull and Rising Hawk of old. And the others were not a whit less formidable. One of them, tipping his long rifle to his shoulder, sent a bullet hissing past the very ear of Torridon. A snap shot—and yet accurate enough even at that distance almost to end the boy’s days.
Then he swerved Ashur away. The stallion crossed the water with a crash and a bound, flung up the farther bank, and went after Nancy Brett and the pinto. When Torridon saw the distance to which she had gained, he was amazed and delighted. He was less pleased when he observed the manner in which Ashur ran up to the pony as though it were standing still.
Nancy, as he came back, turned on him a look as of one who sees the dead returned to life, but she asked no questions. Only when the seven wild riders topped the bank of the river behind them with a yell, she cast one look to the rear.
No doubt she marked the greater distance at which the pursuit rode. No doubt she saw that the two keen hawks of the Cheyennes were nowhere in view. But when she looked forward again, she made no comment to Torridon.
They crossed a little mound in the plain; suddenly the pinto tossed its head. So suddenly did it stop that Ashur was jerked far ahead in his stride before Torridon, his heart still, could swing the stallion around.
He saw Nancy clinging to the neck of the pony, which stood, dead lame, with one forehoof lifted from the ground. Only by grace of good riding and perfect balance had Nancy been able to keep on the horse at all.
Torridon rushed the black to her and held out his arms. “He’ll carry us both!”
“It’s death for both of us,” answered the girl. “Let me go. They . . . they’ll pay no attention to me . . . they’ll ride on after you.”
He answered her: “Standing Bull’s riding with them!”
Leaning from the saddle, he drew her up to him, and Ashur went off with a swinging stride.
The Cheyennes, speeding behind them, raised a long cry. It seemed to Torridon that that wolf-like howl never would die upon the air. It rang, and floated, and rang again, curdling the blood. Like wolves, indeed, when they make sure of the kill.
And yet the stallion ran with wonderful lightness. It seemed to Torridon, at first, that he marked no difference in the length or the rhythm of the stride. Certainly they were walking away from the red men in the rear.
But a difference there was. Nancy, clinging behind, made a secondary load that could not keep in perfect rhythm with the man in the saddle. It was not sheer poundage, only; it was the clumsy disposition of the weight that would kill Ashur.
But he showed no sign of faltering. He ran on into the red heart of the sunset, when the clouds in the sky took the full color, and almost the evening seemed brighter than the day—blood bright it was to Torridon, and like a superstitious child he caught that thought to his soul of souls and told himself that this was the end.
Back, far back fell the Cheyennes. But then they came again. Torridon, looking back, groaned with despair. It seemed as though magic were in them, to come and come again over those weary miles of long running.
The blood-red moment passed. The sky was old gold and pink and rose and soft purples all about. And still Ashur ran on, with his double burden, against the chosen horses of the Cheyennes.
It had told upon him, however. His ears no longer pricked. And his stride was shortened from its old smooth perfection. The flick and spring were gone from his legs, and in their place came a dreadful pounding that made Torridon bite his lips in sorrow and despair. Yet it was better, was it not, that all three of them—man and horse and woman—should die together?
So said Torridon, in his despair.
And then came a voice at his ear like the flutter of the wind: “Oh, Paul, heaven forgive you if you throw yourself away for me. Your life is more than my life. If you live, my soul will watch you, dear. Paul, Paul, let me go!”
He merely clutched one of the hands that she was trying to withdraw from around him. And he drew the pistol, which he had reloaded as he rode up to her from the river. It was pitifully short in range. They could circle and kill him from a distance. But at least one bullet from it would keep Nancy from them.
The time was not long.
Now, looking over his shoulder, he saw their line extending from side to side as they rushed up on him. They had had their lesson in the killing of the two headlong young warriors, and no practiced brave would throw away a single chance of safety. They saw that their prey was in their grasp, and they were aiming at a circle in which they would net him.
The fastest horses went to either flank, surging gradually forward. The slower remained behind, and one of those was Standing Bull. Torridon felt that he could almost see that face, transformed with greedy passion.
Already the flank horses were drawing up to a level with them, and the braves in the lead, looking inward, regarded Torridon with steady glances.
Though from a distance, though in the dusk of the day, he knew them. He knew their hearts.
He turned still farther in the saddle and kissed the lips of Nancy Brett. “Nan,” he murmured, “are you ready?”
“Ready,” she said.
“I’m going to stop Ashur and make him lie down. I’ll fight from behind him as well as I can. But if they rush me . . . the first shot . . .”
“Yes,” she said. And she opened her eyes more widely, and smiled at him without a trace of fear, without a trace of regret, as though to her, dying with him was more than life with any other.
So, in an agony of grief and of love, he looked into her eyes.
A rifle rang. A wild yell burst from behind them, from around them. And then Nancy was crying out in a loud, excited voice.
His own eyes were dim. He had to dash his hand against them before, looking where she pointed, he saw a riderless Indian pony, and the Cheyennes scattering this way and that.
Not fast enough, it seemed, for the gun spoke again, and Torridon saw Young Crow, veteran of many a war raid, peer of all horse thieves, slayer of three Pawnees in one terrible battle, throw up his arms and topple slowly from the saddle, and then roll in a cloud of dust.
The other five, swinging their mounts around, made off as fast as their ponies would bear them from the range of this terrible marksman.
But Torridon, through the thicker shadow that lay along the ground, had marked the flash of the rifle from the top of a rising swale of ground. And he turned to it with an hysteria of joy swelling in him. He tried to speak, but only weak, foolish laughter would bubble from his lips.
Nancy could say the word for him, and her voice was like a prayer of thankfulness: “Roger Lincoln. Roger Lincoln. Thank the heaven that sent him.”
XIII
As they swept up to the swale in the golden dusk, they saw Roger Lincoln rise from the grass on his knees and beckon them down to the ground. He wasted not a word on them, but, laying one rifle beside him, he began to load a second with rapid skill, all the while staring keenly through the dim light at the Cheyennes, who had wheeled together and were apparently consulting, though well out of rifle range.
Torridon and Nancy were on the ground before the big man stood up and greeted them. Even then he had barely a word for them, and the thanks that began to pour from the lips of the girl he hushed with a wave of his hand. He went on to the stallion and stood before him, hands clasped behind his back, and brows frowning.