Chapter XVII. The Girl In The Wreck
In that moment of terrible shock--in the one moment when it seemed tohim as though no other woman in the world could have worn that goldentress of hair but Isobel, Philip had stopped his horse, and his face hadgone as white as death. With a tremendous effort he recovered himself,and saw Billinger staring at him as though the hot sun had for aninstant blinded him of reason. But the lock of hair still rippled andshone before his eyes. Only twice in his life could he remember havingseen hair just like this--that peculiar reddish gold that changed itslights with every passing cloud.
He had seen it on Isobel, in the firelight of the camp, at Lac Bain--andhe had seen it crowning the beautiful head of the girl back home, thegirl of the hyacinth letter. He struggled to calm himself under thequestioning gaze of Billinger's eyes. He laughed, wound the haircarefully about his fingers, and put it in his coat pocket.
"You--you have given me a shock," he said, straining to keep his voiceeven. "I'm glad you had foresight enough to keep the lock of hair,Billinger. At first--I jumped to a conclusion. But there's only onechance in a hundred that I'm right. If I should be right--I knowthe girl. Do you understand--why it startled me? Now for the chase,Billinger. Lead away!"
Leaning low over their saddles they galloped into the North. For a timethe trail of the five outlaws was so distinct that they rode at a speedwhich lathered their horses. Then the short prairie grass, crisp andsun-dried, gave place to a broad sweep of wire grass above which theyellow backs of coyotes were visible as now and then they bobbed up intheir quick, short leaps to look over the top of it. In this brown seaall trace of the trail was lost from the saddle and both men dismounted.Foot by foot they followed the faint signs ahead of them, whileover their backs the sun rose higher and began to burn with the dryfurnace-like heat that had scorched the prairies. So slow was theirprogress that after a time Billinger straightened himself with a nervouscurse. The perspiration was running in dirty streaks down his face.Before he had spoken Philip read the fear that was in his eyes and triedto hide the reflection of it in his own. It was too hot to smoke, but hedrew forth a case of cigarettes and offered one to Billinger. The agentaccepted one, and both lighted in silence, eying each other over theirmatches.
"Won't do," said Billinger, spitting on his match before tossing itamong the grass. "It's ten miles across this wire-dip, and we won't makeit until night--it we make it at all. I've got an idea. You're a bettertrailer than I am, so you follow this through. I'll ride on and see ifI can pick up the trail somewhere in the edge of the clean prairie. Whatdo you say?"
"Good!" said Philip. "I believe you can do it."
Billinger leaped into his saddle and was off at a gallop. Philip wasalmost eagerly anxious for this opportunity, and scarcely had the othergone when he drew the linen handkerchief and the crumpled lock of hairfrom his pocket and held them in his hand as he looked after the agent.Then, slowly, he raised the handkerchief to his face. For a full minutehe stood with the dainty fabric pressed to his lips and nose. Backthere--when he had first held the handkerchief--he thought that heimagined. But now he was sure. Faintly the bit of soiled fabric breathedto him the sweet scent of hyacinth. His eyes shone in an eager bloodshotglare as he watched Billinger disappear over a roll in the prairie amile away.
"Making a fool of yourself again," he muttered, again winding the goldenhair about his fingers. "There are other women in the world who usehyacinth besides her. And there are other women with red-gold hair--andpretty, pretty as Billinger says she was, aren't there?"
He laughed, but there was something uneasy and unnatural in the laugh.In spite of his efforts to argue the absurdity of his thoughts, he couldfeel that he was trembling in every nerve of his body. And twice--threetimes he held the handkerchief to his face before he reached the risein the prairie over which Billinger had disappeared. The agent had beengone an hour when the trail of the outlaws brought him to the knoll.From the top of it Philip looked over the prairie to the North.
A horseman was galloping toward him. He knew that it was Billinger, andstood up in his stirrups so that the other would see him. Half a mileaway the agent stopped and Philip could see him signaling franticallywith both arms. Five minutes later Philip rode up to him. Billinger'shorse was half-winded, and in Billinger's face there were tense lines ofexcitement.
"There's some one out on the prairie," he called, as Philip reined in."I couldn't make out a horse, but there's a man in the trail beyond thesecond ridge. I believe they've stopped to water their horses and feedat a little lake just this side of the rough country."
Billinger had loosened his carbine, and was examining the breech. Heglanced anxiously at Philip's empty saddle-straps.
"It'll be long-range shooting, if they've got guns," he said. "Sorry Icouldn't find a gun for you."
Philip drew one of his two long-barreled service revolvers and set hislips in a grim and reassuring smile as he followed the bobbing head of acoyote some distance away.
"We're not considered proficient in the service unless we can make useof these things at two hundred yards, Billinger," he replied, replacingthe weapon in its holster. "If it's a running fight I'd rather have 'emthan a carbine. If it isn't a running fight we'll come in close."
Philip looked at the agent as they galloped side by side through thelong grass, and Billinger looked at him. In the face of each there wassomething which gave the other assurance. For the first time it struckPhilip that his companion was something more than an operator at BleakHouse Station. He was a fighter. He was a man of the stamp needed downat Headquarters, and he was bound to tell him so before this affair wasover. He was thinking of it when they came to the second ridge.
Five miles to the north and west loomed the black line of the Bad Lands.To a tenderfoot they would not have appeared to be more than a miledistant. Midway in the prairie between there toiled a human figure.Even at that distance Philip and Billinger could see that it was moving,though with a slowness that puzzled them. For several minutes they stoodbreathing their horses, their eyes glued on the object ahead of them.Twice in a space of a hundred yards it seemed to stumble and fall. Thesecond time that it rose Philip knew that it was standing motionless.Then it disappeared again. He stared until the rolling heat waves of theblistered prairie stung his eyes. The object did not rise. Blinking, helooked at Billinger, and through the sweat and grime of the other'sface he saw the question that was on his own lips. Without a word theyspurred down the slope, and after a time Billinger swept to the rightand Philip to the left, each with his eyes searching the low prairiegrass. The agent saw the thing first, still a hundred yards to hisright. He was off his horse when Philip whirled at his shout andgalloped across to him.
"It's her--the girl I found in the wreck," he said. Something seemedto be choking him. His neck muscles twitched and his long, lean fingerswere digging into his own flesh.
In an instant Philip was on his feet. He saw nothing of the girl's face,hidden under a mass of hair in which the sun burned like golden fire. Hesaw nothing but the crumpled, lifeless form, smothered under the shiningmass, and yet in this moment he knew. With a fierce cry he droppedupon his knees and drew away the girl's hair until her lovely face layrevealed to him in terrible pallor and stillness, and as Billinger stoodthere, tense and staring, he caught that face close to his breast, andbegan talking to it as though he had gone "Isobel--Isobel--Isobel--" hemoaned. "My God, my Isobel--"
He had repeated the name a hundred times, when Billinger, who began tounderstand, put his hand on Philip's shoulder and gave him his watercanteen.
"She's not dead, man," he said, as Philip's red eyes glared up at him."Here--water."
"My God--it's strange," almost moaned Philip. "Billinger--youunderstand--she's going to be my wife--if she lives--"
That was all of the story he told, but Billinger knew what those fewwords meant.
"She's going to live," he said. "See--there's color coming back intoher face--she's breathing." He bathed her face in wa
ter, and placed thecanteen to her lips.
A moment later Philip bent down and kissed her. "Isobel--mysweetheart--" he whispered.
"We must hurry with her to the water hole," said Billinger, laying asympathetic hand on Philip's shoulder. "It's the sun. Thank God, nothinghas happened to her, Steele. It's the sun--this terrible heat--"
He almost pulled Philip to his feet, and when he had mounted Billingerlifted the girl very gently and gave her to him.
Then, with the agent leading in the trail of the outlaws, they set offat a walk through the sickening sun-glare for the water hole in the edgeof the Bad Lands.
Chapter XVIII. The Battle In The Canyon
Hunched over, with Isobel's head sheltered against his breast, Philiprode a dozen paces behind the agent. It seemed as if the sun hadsuddenly burst in molten fire upon the back of his neck, and for a timeit made him dizzy. His bridle reins hung loosely over the pommel. Hemade no effort to guide his horse, which followed after Billinger's.It was Billinger who brought him back to himself. The agent waited forthem, and when he swung over in one stirrup to look at the girl it wasthe animal ferocity in his face, and not his words, that aroused Philip.
"She's coming to," he said, straining to keep the tremble out of hisvoice. "I don't believe she's much hurt. You take this canteen. I'mgoing ahead."
He gave Philip the water and leaned over again to gaze into the girl'sface.
"I don't believe she's much hurt," he repeated in a hoarse, drywhisper. "You can leave her at the water hole just beyond that hill offthere--and then you can follow me."
Philip clutched the girl tighter to him as the agent rode off. He sawthe first faint flush returning into her cheeks, the reddening of herlips, the gentle tremor of her silken lashes, and forgetful of allelse but her, he moaned her name, cried out his love for her, again andagain, even as her eyes opened and she stared up into the face of theman who had come to her first at Lac Bain, and who had fought for herthere. For a breath or two the wonder of this thing that was happeningheld her speechless and still lifeless, though her senses were adjustingthemselves with lightning swiftness. At first Philip had not seen heropen eyes, and he believed that she did not hear the words of love hewhispered in her hair. When he raised her face a little from his breastshe was looking at him with all the sweet sanity in the world.
A moment there was silence--a silence of even the breath in Philip'sbody, the beating of his heart. His arms loosened a little. He drewhimself up rigid, and the girl lifted her head a trifle, so that theireyes met squarely, and a world of question and understanding passedbetween them in an instant. As swift as morning glow a flush mountedinto Isobel's face, then ebbed as swiftly, and Philip cried: "You werehurt--hurt back there in the wreck. But you're safe now. The train waswrecked by outlaws. We came out after them, and I--I found you--backthere on the prairie. You're safe now."
His arms tightened about her again.
"You're all right now," he repeated gently. He was not conscious ofthe sobbing break in his voice, or of the great, throbbing love thatit breathed to her. He tried to speak calmly. "There's nothingwrong--nothing. The heat made you sick. But you're all right now--"
From beyond the hill there came a sound that made him break off with asudden, quick breath. It was the sharp, stinging report of Billinger'scarbine! Once, twice, three times--and then there followed more distantshots!
"He's come up with them!" he cried. The fury of fight, of desire forvengeance, blazed anew in his face. There was pain in the grip of hisarm about the girl.
"Do you feel strong--strong enough to ride fast?" he asked. "There'sonly one man with me, and there are five of them. It's murder to let himfight it alone!"
"Yes--yes--" whispered the girl, her arms tightening round him. "Ridefast--or put me off. I can follow--"
It was the first time that he had heard her voice since that lastevening up at Lac Bain, many months before, and the sound of it thrilledhim.
"Hold tight!" he breathed.
Like the wind they swept across the prairie and up the slope of thehill. At the top Philip reined in. Three or four hundred yards distantlay a thick clump of poplar trees and a thousand yards beyond thatthe first black escarpments of the Bad Lands. In the space between ahorseman was galloping fiercely to the west. It was not Billinger. Witha quick movement Philip slipped the girl to the ground, and when shesprang a step back, looking up at him in white terror, he had whippedout one of his big service revolvers.
"There's a little lake over there among those trees," he said. "Waitthere--until I come back!"
He raced down the slope--not to cut off the flying horseman--but towardthe clump of poplars. It was Billinger he was thinking of now. The agenthad fired three shots. There had followed other shots, not Billinger's,and after that his carbine had remained silent. Billinger was among thepoplars. He was hurt or dead.
A well-worn trail, beaten down by transient rangerss big revolvershowing over his horse's ears. A hundred paces and the timber gave placeto a sandy dip, in the center of which was the water hole. The dipwas not more than an acre in extent. Up to his knees in the hole wasBillinger's riderless horse, and a little way up the sand was Billinger,doubled over on his hands and knees beside two black objects thatPhilip knew were men, stretched out like the dead back at the wreck.Billinger's yellow-mustached face, pallid and twisted with pain, lookedover them as Philip galloped across the open and sprang out of hissaddle. With a terrible grimace he raised himself to his knees,anticipating the question on Philip's lips.
"Nothing very bad, Steele," he said. "One of the cusses pinked methrough the leg, and broke it, I guess. Painful, but not killing. Nowlook at that!"
He nodded to the two men lying with their faces turned up to the hotglare of the sun. One glance was enough to tell Philip that they weredead, and that it was not Billinger who had killed them. Their beardedfaces had stiffened in the first agonies of death. Their breasts weresoaked with blood and their arms had been drawn down close to theirsides. As he looked the gleam of a metal buckle on the belt of the deadman nearest him, caught Philip's eye. He took a step nearer to examineit and then drew back. This bit of metal told the story--it bore theletters R.N.W.M.P.
"I thought so," he muttered with a slight catch in his voice. "Youdidn't follow my good advice, Bucky Nome, and now you reap the harvestof your folly. You have paid your debt to M'sieur Janette."
Then Philip turned quickly and looked back at Billinger. In his hand theagent held a paper package, which he had torn open. A second and similarpackage lay in the sand in front of him.
"Currency!" he gasped. "It's a part of the money stolen from the expresscar. The two hundred thousand was done up in five packages, and hereare two of 'em. Those men were dead when I came, and each had a packagelying on his breast. The fellow who pinked me was just leaving the dip!"
He dropped the package and began ripping down his trouser leg with aknife. Philip dropped on his knees beside him, but Billinger motionedhim back.
"It's not bleeding bad," he said. "I can fix it alone."
"You're certain, Billinger--"
"Sure!" laughed the agent, though he was biting his lips until they werenecked with blood. "There's no need of you wasting time."
For a moment Philip clutched the other's hand.
"We can't understand what this all means, old man--the carrying offof--of Isobel--and the money here, but we'll find out soon!"
"Leave that confounded carbine," exclaimed Billinger, as the other roseto mount. "I did rotten work with it, and the other fellow fixed me witha pistol. That's why I'm not bleeding very much."
The outlaw had disappeared in the black edge of the Bad Lands whenPhilip dashed up out of the dip into the plain. There was only one breakahead of him, and toward this he urged his horse. In the entrance to thebreak there was another sandy but waterless dip, and across this trailedthe hoof-prints of the outlaws' mounts, two at a walk--one at a gallop.At one time, ages before, the break had been the outlet of a streampouring its
elf out between jagged and cavernous walls of rock from theblack heart of the upheaved country within. Now the bed of it was strewnwith broken trap and masses of boulders, cracked and dried by centuriesof blistering sun.
Philip's heart beat a little faster as he urged his horse ahead, andnot for an instant did his cocked revolver drop from its guard over themare's ears. He knew, if he overtook the outlaws in retreat, that therewould be a fight, and that it would be three against one. That was whathe hoped for. It was an ambush that he dreaded. He realized that ifthe outlaws stopped and waited for him he would be at a terribledisadvantage. In open fight he was confident His prairie-bred mount tookthe rough trail at a swift canter, evading the boulders and knife-edgedtrap in the same guarded manner that she galloped over prairie-dog andbadger holes out upon the plain. Twice in the ten minutes that followedtheir entrance into the chasm Philip saw movement ahead of him, and eachtime his revolver leaped to it. Once it was a wolf, again the swiftlymoving shadow of an eagle sweeping with spread wings between him and thesun. He watched every concealment as he approached and half swung in hissaddle in passing, ready to fire.
A quick turn in the creek bed, where the rock walls hugged in close,and his mare planted her forefeet with a suddenness that nearly sent himover her head. Directly in their path, struggling to rise from among therocks, was a riderless horse. Two hundred yards beyond a man on foot wasrunning swiftly up the chasm, and a pistol shot beyond him two others onhorseback had turned and were waiting.
"Lord, if I had Billinger's gun now!" groaned Philip.
At the sound of his voice and the pressure of his heels in her flankthe mare vaulted over the animal in their path. The clatter of pursuinghoofs stopped the runner for an instant, and in that same instant Philiphalted and rose in his stirrups to fire. As his finger pressed thetrigger there came to his ears a thrilling sound from behindhim--the sharp galloping beat of steel upon rock! Billinger wascoming--Billinger, with his broken leg and his carbine!
He could have shouted for joy as he fired.
Once--twice, and the outlaw was speeding ahead of him again, unhurt. Athird shot and the man stumbled among the rocks and disappeared. Therewas no movement toward retreat on the part of the mounted men, andPhilip listened as he slipped in fresh cartridges. His horse waspanting; he could hear the excited and joyous tumult of his ownheart-but above it all he heard the steady beat, beat, beat of thoseapproaching hoofs! Billinger would be there soon--in time to use hiscarbine at a deadly rate, while he got into closer quarters with hisrevolver. God bless Billinger--and his broken leg!
He was filled with the craze of fight now and it found vent in a yellof defiance as he spurred on toward the outlaws. They were not going torun. They were waiting for him. He caught the gleam of the hot sun ontheir revolvers, and saw that they meant business as they swung a littleapart to divide his fire. At one hundred yards Philip still held his gunat his side; at sixty he pulled in his mare, flattened along her necklike an Indian, his pistol arm swinging free between her ears. It wasone of the cleverest fighting tricks of the service, and he made themovement as the guns of the others leaped before their faces. Two shotssang over his head, so close that they would have swept him from thesaddle if he had been erect. In another moment the rockbound chasmechoed with the steady roar of the three revolvers. In front of theflaming end of his own gun Philip saw the outlaw on the right pitchforward in his saddle and fall to the ground. He sent his last shot atthe man on the left and drew his second gun. Before he could fire againhis mare gave a tremendous lunge forward and stumbled upon her knees,and with a gasp of horror Philip felt the saddle-girth slip as he swungto free himself.
In the few terrible seconds that followed Philip was conscious of twothings--that death was very near, and that Billinger was a moment toolate. Less than ten paces away the outlaw was deliberately taking aim athim, while his own pistol arm was pinned under the weight of his body.For a breath he ceased to struggle, looking up in frozen calmness at theman whose finger was already crooked to fire.
When a shot suddenly rang out, it passed through him in a lightningflash that it was the shot intended for him. But he saw no movement inthe outlaw's arm; no smoke from his gun. For a moment the man sat rigidand stiff in his saddle. Then his arm dropped. His revolver fell witha clatter among the stones. He slipped sidewise with a low groan andtumbled limp and lifeless almost at Philip's feet.
"Billinger--Billinger--"
The words came in a sob of joy from Philip's lips. Billinger had come intime--just in time!
He struggled so that he could turn his head and look down the chasm.Yes, there was Billinger--a hundred yards away, hunched over his saddle.Billinger, with his broken leg, his magnificent courage, his--
With a wild cry Philip jerked himself free.
Good God, it was not Billinger! It was Isobel! She had slipped from thesaddle--he saw her as she tottered a few steps among the rocks and thensank down among them. With his pistol still in his hand he ran back towhere Billinger's horse was standing. The girl was crumpled against theside of a boulder, with her head in her arms--and she was crying. In aninstant he was beside her, and all that he had ever dreamed of, all thathe had ever hoped for, burst from his lips as he caught her and heldher close against his breast. Yet he never could have told what he said.Only he knew that her arms were clasped about his neck, and that, as shepressed her face against him, she sobbed over and over again somethingabout the old days at Lac Bain--and that she loved him, loved him! Thenhis eyes turned up the chasm, and what he saw there made him bend lowbehind the boulder and brought a strange thrill into his voice.
"You will stay here--a little while," he whispered, running his fingersthrough her shining hair. There was a tone of gentle command in hiswords as he placed her against the rock. "I must go back for a fewminutes. There is no danger--now."
He stooped and picked up the carbine which had fallen from her hand.There was one cartridge still in the breech. Replacing his revolver inits holster he rose above the rocks, ready to swing the rifle to hisshoulder. Up where the outlaws lay, a man was standing in the trail. Hewas making no effort to conceal himself, and did not see Philip untilhe was within fifty paces of him. Even then he did not show surprise.Apparently he was unarmed, and Philip dropped the muzzle of his carbine.The man motioned for him to advance, standing with a spread hand restingon either hip. He was hatless and coatless. His hair was long. His facewas covered with a scraggly growth of red beard, too short to hide hissunken cheeks. He might have been a man half starved, and yet there wasstrength in his bony frame and his eyes were as keen as a serpent's.
"Got in just in time to miss the fun after all," he said coolly. "Queergame, wasn't it? I was ahead of you up as far as the water hole. Sawwhat happened there."
Philip's hand dropped on the butt of his revolver.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Me? I'm Blackstone--Jim Blackstone, from over beyond the elbow. I guesseverybody for fifty miles round here knows me. And I guess I'm the onlyone who knows what's happened--and why." He had stepped behind a hugerock that shut out the lower trail from them and Philip followed, hishand still on his revolver.
"They're both dead," added the stranger, signifying with a nod of hishead that he meant the outlaws. "One of them was alive when I came up,but I ran my knife between his ribs, and he's dead now."
"The devil!" cried Philip, half drawing his revolver at the ferociousleer in the other's face.
"Wait," exclaimed the man, "and see if I'm not right. The man who wasresponsible for the wreck back there is my deadliest enemy--has been foryears, and now I'm even up with him. And I guess in the eyes of the lawI've got the right to it. What do you say?"
"Go on," said Philip.
The snake-like eyes of the man burned with a dull flame and yet he spokecalmly.
"He came out here from England four years ago," he went on. "Hewas forced to come. Understand? He was such a devil back among hispeople--half a criminal even then--that he was sent out here on a
regular monthly remittance. After that everything went the way of hisyounger brother. His father married again, and the second year he becameeven less cut off. He was bad--bad from the start, and he went from badto worse out here. He gambled, fought, robbed, and became the head ofa gang of scoundrels as dangerous as himself. He brooded over whathe considered his wrongs until he went a little mad. He lived only toavenge himself. At the first opportunity he was prepared to kill hisfather and his step-mother. Then, a few weeks ago, he learned that thesetwo were coming to America and that on their way to Vancouver theywould pass through Bleak House Station. He went completely mad then, andplanned to destroy them, and rob the train. You know how he and his gangdid the job. After it was over and they had got the money, he let hisgang go on ahead of him while he went back to the wreck of the sleeper.He wanted to make sure that they were dead. Do you see?"
"Yes," said Philip tensely, "go on."
"And when he got there," continued the other, bowing his head as hefilled an old briar pipe with tobacco, "he found some one else. It'sstrange--and you may wonder how I know it all. But it's true. Back inEngland he had worshipped a young girl. Like the others, she detestedhim; and yet he loved her and would have died for her. And in the wreckof the sleeper he found her and her father--both dead. He brought herout, and when no one was near carried her through the night to hishorse. The knowledge that he had killed her--the only creature in theworld that he loved--brought him back to sanity. It filled him with anew desire for vengeance--but vengeance of another kind. To achievethis vengeance he was compelled to leave her dead body miles out on theprairie. Then he hurried to overtake his comrades. As their leader hehad kept possession of the money they had taken from the express car.The division was to be made at the water hole. The gang was waiting forhim there. The money was divided, and two of the gang rode ahead. Theother two were to go in another direction so as to divide the pursuit.The remittance man remained with them, and when the others had gone adistance he killed them both. He was sane now, you understand. He hadcommitted a great crime and he was employing his own method of undoingit. Then he was going back to bury--her."
The man's voice broke. A great sob shook his frame. When he looked up,Philip had drawn his revolver.
"And the remittance man--" he began.
"Is myself--Jim Blackstone--at your service."
The man turned his back to Philip, hunched over, as if bent in grief.For a moment he stood thus. There followed in that same moment the loudreport of a pistol, and when Philip leaped to catch his tottering formthe glaze of death was in the outlaw's eyes.
"I was going to do this--back there--beside her," he gasped faintly. Ashiver ran through him and his head dropped limply forward.
Philip laid him with his face toward a rock and stepped out from hisconcealment. The girl had heard the pistol shot and was running up thetrail.
"What was that?" she asked, when he had hurried to her.
"The last shot, sweetheart," he answered softly, catching her in hisarms. "We're going back to Billinger now, and then---home."
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