CHAPTER XXVI
THE BELLS RING
"Galloway!"
It seemed almost as though some great voice had shouted it to himthrough the din. Yonder, riding on his spurs, come at this latemoment, was Jim Galloway. The man responsible for all of to-night'sbloodshed, for the disappearance of Florrie, for the death of BillyNorton.
"Coming, Jim Galloway!"
Did he say it? Or again was it a voice shouting to him, urging him on?He looked off to the east. Flying forms everywhere with other racingforms pursuing, firing as they ran. Horses jerking back, rearing,breaking away from the few men guarding them. Full defeat for JimGalloway there. But to the west? Galloway coming on at top speed,shouting as he came, and, upon the mountain's lower slope the others ofGalloway's men, armed and bloodthirsty. If Galloway came to them,whipped them with his tongue, stirring them with his magnetism . . .why, then, the fight was all to be fought over.
Now again Norton, too, was running, bearing down upon the stragglinghorses. He caught up the first dragging reins to lay his hand to,swung up into the saddle, measured swiftly the distance betweenGalloway and the men on the mountain . . . and used his spurs.
On came Jim Galloway, his wide, heavy shoulders not to be mistaken inthe rich moonlight, his hat gone, his head up, a rifle across thesaddle in front of him. Norton lost sight of him as he swept down intothe bed of the arroyo, caught sight of him again from the farther side.Already Galloway was appreciably nearer his men, driving his horsemercilessly.
"If he comes to his crowd before I can stop him," was Norton's thought,"he'll put his game across on us yet. I've got to head him off andtake the chances."
Nor were the odds to be overlooked. Galloway was still too far away tobe stopped by a rifle-ball, and Norton, heading him off, would exposehimself not only to Galloway's fire but to that of the men who weremoving to a lower slope to meet their leader. And yet, with fate inthe balance, here was no time for hesitation.
Now Galloway had seen him, had recognized him, perhaps, the thoughtcoming naturally to him that it would be Roderick Norton who rode tocut him off. He shifted his rifle so that his right hand was on thegrip, the barrel caught in his left; he had dropped his horse's reins.Norton was slipping a fresh clip into his gun, his own reins now uponhis horse's neck. And now both men knew that unless a bullet stoppedhim Norton would cut across Galloway's path before he could come to hismen.
"At him, Roddy, old boy! We're coming!"
Norton glanced over his shoulder and pressed on. Brocky had missedhim, had seen, had called back a half dozen of his men and wasfollowing. Well, if he dropped, maybe Brocky and the others could getJim Galloway. It really began to look as though Galloway had playedout his string.
They were firing from the mountainside now, the bullets thus far flyingwild of their rushing target. Norton shook his head and urged hishorse to fresh endeavor. In a moment he would be fairly betweenGalloway and Galloway's last chance. His eye picked out the spot wherehe would dismount at that moment, a tumble of big boulders. He wouldswing down so that they would be between him and the mountain, so thatnothing but moonlit open space lay between him and Jim Galloway.
While rifles cracked and spat fire and sprayed lead over him and abouthim he rode the last fifty yards. He reached the boulders, set hishorse up, threw himself from the saddle, and with his back to the rock,his face toward Galloway, he lifted his rifle. Galloway, almost at thesame instant, jerked in his own horse. He was so close that Nortoncaught his cry of rage.
"Hands up, Galloway!" cried the sheriff. "Hands up or I'll drop you."
But at last Galloway had come out into the open; at last there was nosubterfuge to stand forth at his need; at last, gambler that he was, heaccepted the even break of man to man. As Norton's voice rang outGalloway fired.
He shot twice before Norton pulled the trigger. Norton shot but theonce. Galloway dropped his rifle, sat rigid a moment, toppled from thesaddle. And his men, seeing him go down, cried out to one another anddrew back into the mountain canons.
"Funny thing," said Brocky Lane afterward. "Had the picture of a kidof a girl in his pocket! Must have carted it around for a year. OldRoddy's bullet tore right square through it."
It was a picture of Florrie Engle, taken years before. As Brocky said:"Just a kid of a girl." Where he got it nobody knew. But then therewere other things about Jim Galloway which no one knew. Perhaps . . .Quien sabe!
During the late hours of the night and the following forenoon the thingwas ended. Sheriff Roberts's deputies with a posse in automobiles hadraced southward, intercepting those other cars despatched toward theborder by the Kid and del Rio. Brocky Lane with a score of men hadswept down upon the stolen herds, scattered them, fired fifty shots,emptied some three or four saddles, and sent the escaping rustlersflying toward the Mexican line. Singly and in small groups other men,farmers, cowboys, miners, and the dwellers of small settlements, joinedwith Norton's men, giving battle to those of Galloway's crowd who haddrawn back into the fastnesses of Mt. Temple. In the afternoon Norton,with the aid of a handful of cowboys from Brocky's outfit and from LasFlores, escorted fifteen anxious-faced prisoners to the county-seat,where jail capacity was to be taxed. And night had come again, sereneand peaceful with the glory of the moon and stars, when he rode oncemore into San Juan, sore and saddle-weary.
At the hotel he learned that Virginia had gone to the Engles. He lefthis jaded horse with Ignacio and walked down the street. In front ofthe Casa Blanca he stopped a moment, staring musingly at the solidadobe walls gleaming white in the moonlight. The place was quiet,deserted. No single light winked at him through door or window. Itseemed to him to be brooding over the passing of Jim Galloway.
He found Florrie and Elmer strolling under the cottonwoods. They hadscant interest in him, little time to bestow upon a mere mortal.Florrie could only cry ecstatically that Black Bill was a hero! He,all alone, had terrorized the Mexican woman guarding her, had savedher, had brought her back. And Elmer could only look pleased andstammer and whisper to Fluff to be still.
Virginia had heard his voice, the voice she had been listening forthroughout so many long hours, and met him before he had come to thedoor.
"Oh, thank God, thank God!" she cried softly. "But . . . you are hurt?"
He forgot his wound as both arms closed about her. From somewhere atthe rear of the house he heard Mrs. Engle's voice crying eagerly; "It'sRoddy!" She was hurrying to greet him. What he had to say must besaid briefly.
"My work is done," he said quickly. "I have put in my resignation thisafternoon. They can get a new sheriff. I am going to be a rancher, mydear. And, Virginia . . ."
He was whispering to her, his lips close to her hair. And Virginia,though her face was suddenly hot with the flush mounting to her brow,gave him steadily for answer:
"Whenever you wish, Rod Norton!"
So it was only twenty-four hours later that Ignacio Chavez stood in theold Mission garden and made his bells talk, just the three upon thewestern arch, the Little One, La Golondrina, and Ignacio Chavez, thegolden-throated trio that tinkled to the touch of his cunning hand andseemed to laugh and sing and proclaim the gladdest of glad tidings.Then Ignacio drew his enrapt gaze earthward from the full moon and madeout a man and a girl riding out into the night, riding toward the Ranchof the Flowers. And he made the bells laugh again.
"And to-morrow," vowed Ignacio solemnly, "not later than to-morrow orthe day thereafter, you shall have your reward, _amigos_. You havetold the world of heavy doings; you have rung for Jim Galloway dead;you have made the music for the wedding of _el_ Senor Nortone. And itshall be I who will make a little roof like a house over you. You willsee!"
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