CHAPTER XXI.
AN ELEMENTAL ALLY.
But they did not come. One of them must have seen Lessard fall, for atthe crack of MacRae's gun men and horses, already half-hidden by thethickening smoke, vanished into the brush. Piegan fired one ineffectualshot as they flicked out of sight. So far we had seen nothing of Lyn. Iwas satisfied she was not in the party, unaccountable as that seemed tobe.
"Darn 'em," Piegan grunted disgustedly. "They're next, now. An' theydon't aim t' run the gantlet till they have t'. We got 'em penned,anyway; they can't get out uh that patch uh brush without showin'themselves."
"Oh, Piegan!" MacRae called to us. He lay within easy shouting-distance,and managed to make himself heard without rising.
"Hello!" Piegan answered.
"Can you fellows keep them from going up the canyon?"
"I reckon we can," Smith called back, "unless this smoke gets so blamethick we kain't see at all."
"All right. I'm going up on top, and throw it into them from above.Maybe I can drive them out of the brush."
Piegan slapped me on the shoulder. "Darn our fool hearts," he exclaimed."We ought to 'a' thought uh that before. Why, he c'n pick 'em off likeblackbirds on a fence, from up there on the bench!"
We did not see MacRae go, but we knew that he must have crawled throughthe sage-brush to the creek channel, where, by stooping, he could gainthe mouth of the canyon unseen. Anyway, our time was fully occupied inwatching the brush-patch that sheltered our plundering friends. Theyheld close to their concealment, however, nor did they waste any powderon us--for that matter, I don't think they knew just where we were, andthey were familiar enough with the gentle art of bushwhacking torealize that the open was a distinctly unhealthy place for either partyto prospect.
It was a long time till we heard from MacRae again, and, lying therepassively, we grew afraid that after all they would give us the slip;for the smoke was now rolling in black clouds above the gorge. So farthe thickest of it had blown overhead, but any moment a change of windmight whip it down the canyon bottom like an ocean fog, and that wouldmean good-by to Hicks & Co.
"That fire's mighty close, an' comin' on the jump," Piegan remarked,with an upward glance. "I wish she'd let up long enough for us t' finishthis job. That smoke's as good as they want, once it begins t' settle inthe gorge. What in thunder d'yuh s'pose Mac's doin' all this time. Heought t' show pretty quick, now."
He showed, as Piegan put it, very shortly. From the top of the oppositebank he fired a shot or two, and drew for the first time a return fromthe enemy. Then he broke off, and when he next gave hint of hiswhereabouts, it was to hail us from the nearest point on the canyon rim.
"Quit your hide-out and pull for the mouth of the gorge. Quick! I'll bethere."
"What the hell's up now!" Piegan muttered. "Well, I guess we'll have t'take a chance. If they don't wing us before we get across this baldplace, we'll be all right. Run like yuh was plumb scairt t' death,Flood."
We sprinted like a pair of quarter-horses across the thirty yards ofbare ground that spread in front of the rock, a narrow enough space, tobe sure, but barren of cover for a jack-rabbit, much less twodecent-sized men. My heart was pumping double-quick when we threwourselves headlong in the welcome sage-brush--they had done their levelbest to stop us, and some of those forty-four caliber humming-birdsbuzzed their leaden monotone perilously close to our heads. That is onekind of music for which I have a profound respect.
From there to the creek-channel we crawled on all fours, as MacRae haddone. Stooping, lest our heads furnish a target, we splashed along inthe shallow water till we reached the mouth of the canyon. There weslipped carefully to higher ground. MacRae was scrambling and slidingdown from above, barely distinguishable against the bank. Far up thegorge dense clouds of black smoke swooped down from the benchland.Already the patch of brush in which lay the renegade Policemen washidden in the smudge, shut away from our sight. We hailed MacRae when hereached the foot of the hill, and he came crashing through sage andbuck-brush and threw himself, panting, on the ground.
"The fire," he gasped, "is coming down the gorge. They're cut off at theother end. They've got to come out here in a little while--or roast. Thesmoke would choke a salamander, on top, right now. We can't miss them inthis narrow place, no matter how thick it gets. Look yonder!"
A wavering red line licked its way to the canyon-edge on the east side,wiped out the grass, and died on the bald rim-rock. Away up the creek afaint crackling sounded.
"Dry timber," Piegan muttered. "It'll get warm 'round here prettydirectly."
The smoke, blacker now, more dense, hot as a whiff from a baker's oven,swooped down upon us in choking eddies. It blew out of the canyon-mouthlike a gust from a chimney, rolling over and over in billowy masses. Thebanks on either hand were almost invisible. We knew that our time ofwaiting was short. The popping of dry, scrubby timber warned us that ourposition would soon be untenable. The infernal vapors from the unholymixture of green and dry grass, berry bushes, willow scrub, and theubiquitous sage, made breathing a misery and brought unwilling tears toour stinging eyes. And presently, above the subdued but menacing noisesof the fire, the beat of galloping hoofs uprose.
They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind,heading for the protection of the river. The pack-horses, neckedtogether, galloped in the lead, and behind them Hicks, Gregory, andBevans leaned over the necks of their mounts. They knew that we werewaiting for them, but at the worst they had a fighting chance with us,and none with what came behind. So thick hung the smoky veil that theywere right on top of us before they took tangible shape; and when werose to our knees and fired, the crack of their guns mingled with thatof our own. Gregory, so near that I could see every feature of his darkface, the glittering black eyes, the wide mouth parted over white, eventeeth, wilted in his saddle as they swept by. Bevans and his horse wentdown together. But Hicks the wily, a superb horseman, hung in his offstirrup and swerved away from us, and the smoke closed behind him to thetune of our guns.
It was done in less time than it has taken to tell of it. There was noprolonged hand-to-hand struggle with buckets of blood marring thesurrounding scenery, and a beautiful heroine wringing her hands indespair; merely a rush of horses and men out of the smoke, a brief spasmof gun-fire--it was begun and ended in five seconds. But there were twofallen men, and Piegan Smith with a hole through the big muscle of hisright arm, to show that we had fought.
The pack-horses, with no riders at their heels to guide them, hadtangled each other in the connecting-rope and stopped. Hicks was gone,and likely to keep going. So we turned our attention to Gregory andBevans. Gregory was dead as the proverbial door-nail, but Bevans, oninvestigation, proved to be very much alive--so much so that if he hadnot been partly stunned by the fall, and thereafter pinned to the groundby a thousand-pound horse, he would have potted one or two of us with agood heart. As it was, we reached the gentleman in the same moment thathe made a heroic effort to lay hold of the carbine which hadluckily--for us--fallen beyond the length of his arm.
"Yuh lay down there an' be good!" Piegan, out of the fullness of hisheart, emphasized his command with the toe of his boot. "Where's thatgirl, yuh swine?"
"Go to hell!" Bevans snarled.
"Here," MacRae broke in hastily, "we've got to move pretty _pronto_,and get across the river. That fire will be on us in five minutes. Sargeand I will gather up their horses. You keep an eye on Bevans, Piegan;he'll answer questions fast enough when I get at him."
While Mac dashed across the creek I captured Gregory's horse, which hadstopped when his rider fell; and as I laid hand on the reins I thought Iheard a shot off beyond the river. But I couldn't be certain. The whineof the wind that comes with a fire, the crackle of the fire itself, themanifold sounds that echoed between the canyon walls and the pungent,suffocating smoke, all conspired against clear thinking or hearing. Ilistened a moment, but heard no more. Then, with time at a premium, Ihastened to straighten out the tangle of pa
ck-animals. Mac loomed up inthe general blur with Lessard's body on his horse, as I led the othersback to where Piegan stood guard over Bevans.
"Ain't this hell!" he coughed. "That fire's right on top of us. We gott' make the river in a hurry."
It was another minute's work to lash Gregory's body on one of thepack-horses, and release the sullen Bevans from the weight of his deadmount. As an afterthought, I looked in the pockets on his saddle, andthe first thing I discovered was a wad of paper money big enough tochoke an ox, as Piegan would say. I hadn't the time to investigatefurther, so I simply cut the _anqueros_ off his saddle and flung themacross the horn of my own--and even in that swirl of smoke and sparks Iglowed with a sense of gratification, for it seemed that at last I wasabout to shake hands with the ten thousand dollars I had mourned aslost. Then Piegan and I drove Bevans ahead of us and moved the spoils ofwar to the river brink, while MacRae hurried to the cottonwood groveafter our own neglected mounts; they had given us too good service to beabandoned to the holocaust.
MacRae soon joined us with the three horses; out into the stream, wadingtill the water gurgled around our waists, we led the bunch. Then wewere compelled to take our hats and slosh water over packs and saddlestill they were soaked--for the fire was ravaging the flat we had justleft, and showers of tiny sparks descended upon and around us. Thusproof against the fiery baptism, though still half-strangled by thesmoke, our breathing a succession of coughs, we mounted and pushedacross.
The high water had abated and the river was now flowing at its normalstage, some three hundred yards in width and nowhere swimming-deep onthe ford. We passed beyond spark-range and splashed out on a sand-barthat jutted from the southern bank. Midway between the lapping water andthe brush that lined the edge of the flat, a dark object becamevisualized in the shifting gray vapor. We rode to it and pulled up inamaze. Patiently awaiting the pleasure of his master, as a good cavalryhorse should, was the bay gelding Hicks had ridden; and Hicks himselfsprawled in the sand at the end of the bridle-reins. I got down andlooked him over. He was not dead; far from it. But a bullet had scoredthe side of his head above one ear, and he was down and out for thetime.
We stripped the pistol-belt off him, and a knife. At the same time werendered Bevans incapable of hostile movement by anchoring both handssecurely behind his back with a pack-rope. That done, Piegan's bleedingarm came in for its share of attention. Then we held a council of war.