Bess pushed her head over a ridge to take a look at the country. There was the sound of something plumping into the sand, and a shower of little sand particles flung up in a stinging spray.
The noise of a rifle was swallowed up in the hot silence of the desert. Bess ducked back behind the ridge. The shot had been fairly close.
“How far, Bess?” I asked her.
She rubbed some of the sand out of her eyes. “Couple of hundred yards, I guess.”
I got out my gun and wormed my way to the top of the ridge. I figured the other two were working somewhere close, and that they’d probably charge. I cocked my gun and slid over the ridge.
They weren’t charging, however. They were still two hundred yards away, waving signals to another pair that were away over on another ridge.
They saw me, and both rifles cracked. The bullets were too close for comfort. It was close shooting, all right. These men knew how to handle their weapons. What was more, they’d worked out a pretty slick strategy. They weren’t going to charge. They were going to separate, keep out of range as far as they could, and gun us out as though we’d been coyotes.
“We’ve got to move,” I told Bess and Ed, sliding back down the slope of the sand ridge. “And we’ve got to keep pretty much out of sight while we’re moving!”
I knew then how a wild animal feels.
IV. Indian Trail
There was a draw which ran along for fifty or seventy-five yards, inclining upward steadily. Then there was a little saddle, running down into some broken country. We kept pretty well doubled up so that our heads wouldn’t show, and ran up the draw.
We were at the top of it when one of the men from the second couple swung around so he could see us. He opened up.
Whoever was first over had the best chance, so I sent Bess over the top on the run. Guns roared and little geysers of sand whipped up. Ed Kaplin made a running dive. The bullets were coming closer now. One of them actually whipped dust from his coat, but he wasn’t scratched.
I was between two fires. The man who had swung around, so he could see me, was working the pump on his gun at a distance of three hundred and fifty yards. There was a cross fire over the saddle, and the men who had seen Bess and Ed go knew I’d have to go over, too.
I ran a few steps back down the draw, then charged the side hill and went over the ridge fifteen or twenty yards down from the low saddle where the others had gone over. That saved my life. They’d concentrated their fire on the saddle. The necessity for shifting their aim threw them off on the first shots. I was going like a plummet on the second shot.
I dropped into the other little cañon and joined the others. We ran for the lower level, crossed a wash, and scrambled along a curving cañon that ran up on the other side. We managed to cross the next ridge before they could get to a spot where they could even see us. It was hot work. Perspiration was streaming from us, and we were breathless.
Bess looked at me, and her eyes were glittering with rage. “They’re hunting us down like dogs!” she flared.
I knew that my own feelings weren’t any too calm and tranquil. “When night comes,” I said grimly, “it’ll be our turn. Our guns will give us an advantage at ranges that are short enough. We’ll keep in touch with them, and close in when it gets dark.”
Ed Kaplin nodded. Bess clamped her lips in a thin line.
“Our problem,” I told them, “is going to be to keep going until it does get dark. They’re tracking us, and they’re going to keep us on the move, constantly. If they can guess where we’re heading and get us cut off they’ll have us between two fires. Those are high-power rifles. They’ll be effective at enormous ranges.”
We swung in a great circle, getting up on the high places from time to time to see what the others were doing. They were pushing on at speed. Two of them were following our tracks. The other two had swung far out, one on either side, and were pushing forward at top speed, trying to get us where we’d be outflanked.
We kept trotting wherever we could, and it was pretty evident that we couldn’t stand the pace for any great length of time. On the other hand, the pursuers were also showing signs of slowing.
I contemplated a scheme of getting over to the side and ambushing one of the men who was trying to flank us. But that would have split us up, and with a woman along it was better to keep together.
Obviously, our game was to make the men walk twice as far as we did, if we could. And so I swung our party over to the east; put them to it to use their last remaining strength. Then I swung them back to the south, in a little cañon, told them to sit down and rest. I crawled up to look things over.
The man who was trying to gain the east flank went past me, within a hundred yards of the place where I was concealed. He was gasping, almost staggering, but he kept on going. The man on the west flank was keeping pace with him. But they were out of contact with each other because the country was more broken here.
I slid down the ridge, moved back along our tracks. The two who were tracking us were behind. They came into sight, running shoulder to shoulder down a slope, toiling slowly upward again.
I rested the barrel of my gun on a rock, got a good aim down the sights, allowed for elevation, and pulled the trigger. The shot was just a couple of inches high. It caught the crown of one of the hats, whipped it off. I pulled the trigger again. The bullet went between the two. The third shot I put to one side. But the fusillade sent them running for cover, trying to locate me. I remained motionless.
I could see the men who had tried to flank us, now some two or three hundred yards on ahead, turn at the sound of the firing, and give every ounce of strength they had to a last desperate run.
I slid down the side of my ridge, ran back to the others, and called on them for another sprint. We sneaked around, got to the cañon up which the men who had tried to flank us had come, and started on his back tracks.
The country was rough here. We slowed somewhat. A rocky ledge gave us a chance to lose our tracks. I didn’t figure these men, being city men, were much on tracking. We crossed over a couple of ridges.
Once I caught a glimpse of the men. They were closing in, cautiously, concentrating on the ridge where I had been when I fired the shots; and they were going cautiously, too. I’d opened their eyes a bit to what a long-barrelled revolver can do at a distance.
We were to the west of the hogan now, and our tracks were pretty well covered. But is wasn’t yet noon, and there was a long hot day ahead of us.
The desert was merciless. The sun glared with eye-aching brilliance down upon the varicolored sand. There wasn’t a breath of wind. The hot air came radiating up off the rocks as though it had been blasted from an oven.
But we three knew the desert. She was cruel, and yet her cruelty was kindness. The price of a mistake is pain. Therefore, one learns not to make mistakes.
Which is why I love the desert. It is a place where character is tempered in a furnace heat. It is the cruelest mother a man ever had, and therefore the kindest.
Bess was following me. Ed Kaplin brought up the rear. Our guns were ready in our hands, and the hot metal would have raised a blister had we held our hands on the barrels.
Of a sudden I stopped. There was a twig on the ground, a broken branch of sage, with a fork at one end. It was like the others. To the uninitiated it was merely a twig, a desert-dried bit of branch.
I stopped and looked at it, and then I bent closer. There was something on it, a little blotch of red that had turned to a brown rust.
“Hoste-Ne-Bega came this way, and he was wounded,” I said.