his nose pointed straight out hefore him, with old Applehead leaning forward and yelling to Johnny with a cracked hoarseness that alone betrayed how far youth was behind him.
They thought at first that he meant to jump the fence, and they knew he could not make it. When they saw that he meant to ride through it, Weary and Pink groaned involuntarily at the certainty of a fall and sickening entanglement in the wires. Only Lite, cool as though he were rounding up milch cows, rode half-turned in the saddle and sent shot after shot back at the line of Navajos, with such swift precision that the Indians swerved and fell back a little, leaving another pony wallowing in the sand and taking with them one fellow who limped until he had climbed up behind one who waited for him.
" Go it, Johnny — dang yore measly hide, go to it! We'll show 'm we ain't so old 'n' tender we cain't turn a trick t' bug their dang eyes out I Bust into it! We'll show 'em ! -' And Applehead shrilled a raucous range " Hoo-eee-ee! " as Johnny lunged against the taut wires.
It was a long chance he took — a " dang long 257
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chance " as Applehead admitted afterward. But, as he had hoped, it happened that Johnny's stride brought him with a forward leap against the wires, so that the full impact of his eleven-hundred pounds plus the momentum of his speed, plus the weight of Applehead and the saddle, hit the wires fair and full. They popped like cut wires on a bale of hay — and it was lucky that they were tight strung so that there was no slack to take some of the force away. It was not luck, but plain shrewdness on Applehead's part, that Johnny came straight on, so that there was no tearing see-saw of the strands as they broke. Two inch-long cuts on his chest and a deeper, longer one on his foreleg was the price Johnny paid, and that was all. The lower wire he never touched, since it was a leap that landed him against the fence. He lurched and recovered himself, and went on at a slower gallop while Applehead beckoned the three to come on.
" I kain't say I'd want to git in the habit uh bustin' fences that way," he grinned over his shoulder as the three jumped through the gap he had made and forged up to him. " But I calc'late if 258
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they's another one Johnny 'n' me kin make it, mebby."
" Well, I was brought up in a barbed wire country," Pink exploded, " but I'll be darned if I ever saw a stunt like that pulled off before! "
" We-ell, I hed a bronk go hog-wild ? n' pop three wires on a fence one time," Applehead explained modestly, " 'n' he didn't cut hisself a-tall, skurcely. It's all accordin' t' how yuh hit it, I reckon. Anyway, I calc'lated it was wuth tryin', 'cause we shore woulda had our hands full if we'd a stopped at that fence, now I'm tellin' yuh! ']SP another thing," he added bodefully, " I figgured we'd better be gittin' to Luck 'n' his bunch. I calc'late they need us, mebby."
No one made any reply to that statement, but even Lite, who never had been inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with a new respect. The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting as they rode — at the four men first, and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across 259
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the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, but that was all.
Three hundred yards or so in the lead, the four raced down the long, gentle slope. A mile or two, perhaps three, they could run before their horses gave out. But then, when they could run no longer, they would have to stop and fight; and the question that harped continually through their minds was: Could they run until they reached Luck and the boys with him ? Could they ? They did not even know where Luck was, or what particular angle of direction would carry them to him quickest Applehead and Johnny were pointing the way, keeping a length ahead of the others. But even old Applehead was riding, as he would have put it, " by-guess and by-gosh " until they crossed a shallow draw, labored up the hill beyond, and heard, straight away before them, the faint pop-pop of rifle shots. Old Applehead turned and sent them a blazing blue glance over his shoulders.
" Ride, dang ye! " he barked. " They've got Luck cornered in the Devil's Fryin'-pan! "
CHAPTER XVIII IN THE BEVEL'S FEYING-PAN
LUCK, riding confidently on the trail of the three horsemen who had taken to the south along the front of the square butte, believed that the turn of the trail around the southern end meant simply that the three who came this way would meet their companions on the other side, and that he, following after, would be certain to meet Ap-plehead. He had hopes of the speedy capture of Ramon Chavez and his men, and the hope spread to the four who went with him, so that their spirits rose considerably. Big Medicine and Happy Jack even found a good deal of amusement in their exchange of opinions regarding old granny Apple-head and his constant fear of the Navvies. Now and then the Native Son joined in the laugh, though his attention was chiefly given to the discussion Andy and Luck were having about Eamon and his manner of using Luck's work as an oppor-261
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tunity to rob the bank, and the probable effect it would have on the general standing of Luck and his company unless they managed to land the thieves in jail. Being half Mexican himself, the Native Son was sensitive upon the subject of Ramon, and almost as anxious to see Ramon in jail as was Luck himself.
So while Applehead and his boys were scenting danger and then finding themselves in the middle of it, Luck and his party rode along absorbed in themselves and in the ultimate goal, which was Ramon. They saw nothing queer about the trail they followed, and they saw no evidence of treachery anywhere. They rode with the rifles slung under their right thighs and their six-shooters at their hips, and their eyes roving casually over their immediate surroundings while their minds roved elsewhere — not because they were growing careless, but because there was absolutely nothing to rouse their suspicions, now that they no longer had Applehead along to preach danger and keep them keyed up to expect it.
They followed the tracks through a scattered grove of stunted pinons, circled at fault for a few 262
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minutes in the rocks beyond, and then picked up the trail. They were then in the narrow neck which was called the handle of the Devil's Frying-pan — and they would have ridden unsuspectingly into the very Pan itself, had not the jSTative Son's quick eyes caught a movement on the rim-rock across the bare, rock-bottomed basin. He spoke to Luck, about it, and Luck levelled his field glasses and glimpsed a skulking form up there.
" Hunt yourselves some shelter, boys! " he cried in the sharp tone of warning. " We'll make sure who's ahead before we go any farther."
They ducked behind rocks or trees and piled off their horses in a hurry. And a scattered fusillade from the rim-rock ahead of them proved how urgent was their need.
For the first fifteen minutes or so they thought that they were fighting Eamon and his party, and their keenest emotions were built largely of resentment, which showed in the booming voice of Big Medicine when he said grimly:
" Well, I'd jest about as soon pack Eamon in dead, as lead 'im in alive 'n' kickin', by cripes! Which is him, d'yuh reckon ?" 263
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From behind a rock shield Luck was studying the ledge. " They're Injuns — or there are Injuns in the bunch, at least," he told them after a moment. " See that sharp point sticking up straight ahead? I saw an Injun peeking around the edge — to the south. You watch for him, Andy, and let him have it where he lives next time he sticks his head out." He swung the glasses slowly, taking every inch of the rim in his field of vision. As he moved them he named the man he wanted to watch each place where he had reason to suspect that someone was hiding.