Mullins refused bitterly to join in the attempt. 'You're fixing to get us both killed. I'm going back.'
'No,' Hal told him firmly. 'You're going to the top if I have to rope you and drag you up.'
The horse balked, but after a time knifed its front hoofs into the ground and plunged forward. More than once it refused to try the precipitous slope. Mullins petted and soothed the animal till it was ready for another rush. How they got it to the rock outcrop where there was solid ground for standing was a marvel. From there the rise was more gradual. They hauled, encouraged, and bullied the roan to the summit.
Mullins wiped the sweat from his face with a sleeve. 'If I ever tell the boys I brought a horse up there, I'll be called a liar for the rest of my life,' he said.
It was lighter on the plateau. While they waited to rest, Hal noticed the ground sloped to the south. A stand of junipers covered the mesa, but there was little small brush. Before they reached the yonder side of the high land, the gray light of dawn was beginning to sift into the sky. In front of them were cowbacked hills with wide draws between. The M K rancher recognized this country.
If they kept going, the coming day would show them the range where his cattle fed. They descended a slope sown with a thin stand of Spanish bayonet and climbed the hill beyond.
'Home soon,' Hal said cheerfully. 'We've earned a first-class breakfast.'
His companion growled resentfully. He guessed that an ordeal was ahead of him. Stevens intended to break his resistance and make him talk.
They dipped into another draw and moved up the opposite incline. Day was breaking clear, and they could see the blades of the M K windmill whirling in the breeze.
Hal gave an exclamation of annoyance. In the valley below them a man stood holding a bunch of saddled horses. One of the dismounted riders was lying back of a clump of bushes watching the ranch house. The outlaws had cut him off from his friends. When he glanced at Mullins, he saw a sly pleased smile vanishing from the man's face.
'Looks like your luck has run out,' the rustler said.
Stevens caught the bridle rein and moved the horse back of the hill crest. 'I'll have to give you a raincheck on that breakfast,' he told his prisoner. 'We're traveling again.'
'Where?' asked Mullins.
'Away from here,' Hal answered.
He knew this part of the country as a teacher does her textbook. In and out among the low hills he took Mullins and brought him at last down Frenchy's Draw to the valley.
'You're headin' for the Seven Up,' the outlaw said.
'Yes.'
'But the boys will see us crossing the pasture.'
'They may. We'll leave the horse in the arroyo and cut across on foot. Maybe they won't notice us.'
'You can't do that to me!' Mullins cried. 'I'm not going.
Of course they would see us — and pick us off with rifles. They wouldn't know me from you.'
Hal said quietly, 'We'll go together.'
There was a cold, hard light in his eyes that chilled the hill man. In his will was a driving force not to be denied. His reckless feet had carried him on many a dangerous trail. Mullins knew that this was one he had to take with him.
When they emerged from the draw, the eyes of both men swept the ridge to the north. No sign of the enemy could be seen there. But before they had covered a hundred yards of the meadow, several horsemen sat in silhouette against the skyline. Mullins gave a yelp of alarm and began to run. He had not gone a dozen steps when the riders started down the hill toward them.
Hal's guess was that they would be caught before they could reach the ranch house. As he ran, he fired twice into the air, in the hope of drawing the attention of somebody at the Seven Up to their predicament. The distance to the hill below the house was probably a mile and a half. The riders would come in through the north gate and cut diagonally across in front of them. He looked over his shoulder and saw that they were already pouring through the opening in the barbed wire fence. Soon bullets would begin to throw up spits of dirt in front of and behind them.
CHAPTER 35
Under Cover of a White Flag
DALE'S restless gaze wandered from the mountain spikes of Rabbit Ear, down the torn hill country to the M K ranch, and swept the valley at her feet. She had risen from a night of wakefulness and troubled dreams due to anxiety on account of Hal Stevens. For nearly three days he had been missing. His friends had hoped that he would return with Sheriff Elbert's posse, but it had come back yesterday afternoon with no news of him and without any of the men wanted by the law.
Casey joined her in front of the house. He knew that she was greatly worried. Since he liked and admired Hal, his mind too was disturbed. But he did not let this doubt reach the surface.
'Stevens will turn up all right,' he assured her. 'He has more lives than a cat. Don't you fret, Miss Dale. That young man will come in grinning when he is ready.'
'He's up there somewhere in the Rabbit Ear country,' she said, her harassed eyes shuttling back to the hills. 'One of his men saw him heading that way.' A pulse of anger leaped into her voice. 'What is he trying to do alone? Hasn't he any sense?'
'The crazy things he does seem always to come out right. It will be that way this time too.'
'There are some men on the valley rim this side of the M K,' the girl cried. 'Wait a minute.' She ran into the house and returned with field glasses.
After a long look she handed the glasses to her foreman. The men were on horseback, but were too far away to be identified.
'They are starting down into the valley,' Casey said. 'What for?'
'Look!' Dale pointed across the pasture to the mouth of Frenchy's Draw. Two men had come out of it and were running across the meadow. She snatched the glasses from Casey and with them picked up the two on foot. 'I believe—'
Dale broke off her sentence and gave a sharp order. 'Get that car going and pick me up here.' She ran into the house and was back in time to meet Casey in the sedan. He flung open the door without quite stopping and the girl jumped in beside him. She had a rifle in her hand.
'They are boiling into the pasture to cut those fellows off,' the foreman said. 'How many of them?'
He was busy keeping the car in the road. They were racing downhill as fast as he dared, and he must watch where he was going.
'Five of them,' Dale answered. 'Hal is one of the two.'
Casey slackened for the gate. She jumped out and flung it wide. In another moment she was beside him again.
The horsemen were firing as they galloped, Dale could see the spurts of dust flung up where the bullets struck. Fortunately, none of the riders pulled up to take careful aim. They did not want to lose the chance of cutting off the runners from the ranch house.
It would be a near thing. The car would beat the hill men to their prey, but the pickup would be under the fire of the rifles. Over the grass bumps travel was rough, and at the speed they were making the sedan pitched like a bucking bronco.
Casey gauged the distance carefully to avoid loss of even a second. He swept the car around in a circle just in front of the runners. Mullins glanced at his friends in the saddle, undecided whether he had better make a bolt to escape. But the rifles were spitting at him, and he had no time to explain he was no enemy. Hal pushed him forward into the rear seat and fell on top of him.
Dale's rifle roared at the attackers. She fired again as Casey completed the circle and dashed for the ranch house. Hal took the weapon from her, crashed the butt through the rear window, and answered the fusillade hammering at the car. Bullets spattered around them. Two or three struck the car. One must have hit the gas tank, for a jet of gasoline spurted from it.