The Max Brand Megapack (74 page)

“No more talk, sheriff,” thundered one among the cowpunchers, “we’ve had enough of your line of talk. Now we want some action of our own brand. For the last time: Are you goin’ to order Lewis an’ Patterson to give up Haines, or are you goin’ to let two good men die fightin’ for a damn lone rider?”

“What about the feller who’s goin’ to take Lee Haines out of Elkhead?” cried another.

The crowd yelled with delight.

“Yes, where is he? What about him?”

Rogers, glancing down from his position on the chair, stared into the brown eyes of Whistling Dan. He stretched out an arm that shook with excitement.

“That feller there!” he cried, “that one without a mask! Whistlin’ Dan Barry is the man!”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE RESCUE

The throng gave back from Dan, as if from the vicinity of a panther. Dan faced the circle of scowling faces, smiling gently upon them.

“Look here, Barry,” called a voice from the rear of the crowd, “why do you want to take Haines away? Throw in your cards with us. We need you.”

“If it’s fightin’ you want,” cried a joker, “maybe Lewis an’ Patterson will give us all enough of it at the jail.”

“I ain’t never huntin’ for trouble,” said Dan.

“Make your play quick,” said another. “We got no time to waste even on Dan Barry. Speak out, Dan. Here’s a lot of good fellers aimin’ to take out Haines an’ give him what’s due him—no more. Are you with us?”

“I’m not.”

“Is that final?”

“It is.”

“All right. Tie him up, boys. There ain’t no other way!”

“Look out!” shouted a score of voices, for a gun flashed in Dan’s hand.

He aimed at no human target. The bullet shattered the glass lamp into a thousand shivering and tinkling splinters. Thick darkness blotted the room. Instantly thereafter a blow, a groan, and the fall of a body; then a confused clamour.

“He’s here!”

“Give up that gun, damn you!”

“You got the wrong man!”

“I’m Bill Flynn!”

“Guard the door!”

“Lights, for God’s sake!”

“Help!”

A slender figure leaped up against the window and was dimly outlined by the starlight outside. There was a crash of falling glass, and as two or three guns exploded the figure leaped down outside the house.

“Follow him!”

“Who was that?”

“Get a light! Who’s got a match?”

Half the men rushed out of the room to pursue that fleeing figure. The other half remained to see what had happened. It seemed impossible that Whistling Dan had escaped from their midst. Half a dozen sulphur matches spurted little jets of blue flame and discovered four men lying prone on the floor, most of them with the wind trampled from their bodies, but otherwise unhurt. One of them was the sheriff.

He lay with his shoulders propped against the wall. His mouth was a mass of blood.

“Who got you, Rogers?”

“Where’s Barry?”

“The jail, the jail!” groaned Rogers. “Barry has gone for the jail!”

Revolvers rattled outside.

“He’s gone for Haines,” screamed the deputy. “Go get him, boys!”

“How can he get Haines? He ain’t got the keys.”

“He has, you fools! When he shot the lights out he jumped for me and knocked me off the chair. Then he went through my pockets and got the keys. Get on your way! Quick!”

The lynchers, yelling with rage, were already stamping from the room.

With the jangling bunch of keys in one hand and his revolver in the other, Dan started full speed for the jail as soon as he leaped down from the window. By the time he had covered half the intervening distance the first pursuers burst out of Rogers’s house and opened fire after the shadowy fugitive. He whirled and fired three shots high in the air. No matter how impetuous, those warning shots would make the mob approach the jail with some caution.

On the door of the jail he beat furiously with the bunch of keys.

“What’s up? Who’s there?” cried a voice within.

“Message from Rogers. Hell’s started! He’s sent me with the keys!”

The door jerked open and a tall man, with a rifle slung across one arm, blocked the entrance.

“What’s the message?” he asked.

“This!” said Dan, and drove his fist squarely into the other’s face.

He fell without a cry and floundered on the floor, gasping. Dan picked him up and shoved him through the door, bolting it behind him. A narrow hall opened before him and ran the length of the small building. He glanced into the room on one side. It was the kitchen and eating-room in one. He rushed into the one on the other side. Two men were there. One was Haines, sitting with his hands manacled. The other was the second guard, who ran for Dan, whipping his rifle to his shoulder. As flame spurted from the mouth of the gun, Dan dived at the man’s knees and brought him to the floor with a crash. He rose quickly and leaned over the fallen man, who lay without moving, his arms spread wide. He had struck on his forehead when he dropped. He was stunned for the moment, but not seriously hurt. Dan ran to Haines, who stood with his hands high above his head. Far away was the shout of the coming crowd.

“Shoot and be damned!” said Haines sullenly.

For answer Dan jerked down the hands of the lone rider and commenced to try the keys on the handcuffs. There were four keys. The fourth turned the lock. Haines shouted as his hands fell free.

“After me!” cried Dan, and raced for the stable.

As they swung into their saddles outside the shed, the lynchers raced their horses around the jail.

“Straightaway!” called Dan. “Through the cottonwoods and down the lane. After me. Satan!”

The stallion leaped into a full gallop, heading straight for a tall group of cottonwoods beyond which was a lane fenced in with barbed wire. Half a dozen of the pursuers were in a position to cut them off, and now rushed for the cottonwoods, yelling to their comrades to join them. A score of lights flashed like giant fireflies as the lynchers opened fire.

“They’ve blocked the way!” groaned Haines.

Three men had brought their horses to a sliding stop in front of the cottonwoods and their revolvers cracked straight in the faces of Dan and Haines. There was no other way for escape. Dan raised his revolver and fired twice, aiming low. Two of the horses reared and pitched to the ground. The third rider had a rifle at his shoulder. He was holding his fire until he had drawn a careful bead. Now his gun spurted and Dan bowed far over his saddle as if he had been struck from behind.

Before the rifleman could fire again Black Bart leaped high in the air. His teeth closed on the shoulder of the lyncher and the man catapulted from his saddle to the ground. With his yell in their ears, Dan and Haines galloped through the cottonwoods, and swept down the lane.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LONG RIDE

A cheer of triumph came from the lynchers. In fifty yards the fugitives learned the reason, for they glimpsed a high set of bars blocking the lane. Dan pulled back beside Haines.

“Can the bay make it?” he called.

“No. I’m done for.”

For answer Dan caught the bridle of Lee’s horse close to the bit. They were almost to the bars. A dark shadow slid up and over them. It was Black Bart, with his head turned to look back even as he jumped, as if he were setting an example which he bid them follow. Appallingly high the bars rose directly in front of them.

“Now!” called Dan to the tall bay, and jerked up on the bit.

Satan rose like a swallow to the leap. The bay followed in gallant imitation. For an instant they hung poised in air. Then Satan pitched to the ground, landing safely and lightly on four cat-like feet. A click and a rattle behind them—the bay was also over, but his hind hoofs had knocked down the top bar. He staggered, reeled far to one side, but recovering, swept on after Satan and Dan. A yell of disappointment rang far behind.

Glancing back Haines saw the foremost of the pursuers try to imitate the feat of the fugitives, but even with the top bar down he failed. Man and horse pitched to the ground.

For almost a mile the lane held straight on, and beyond stretched the open country. They were in that free sweep of hills before the pursuers remounted beyond the bars. In daytime a mile would have been a small handicap, but with the night and the hills to cover their flight, and with such mounts as Satan and the tall bay, they were safe. In half an hour all sound of them died out, and Haines, following Dan’s example, slowed his horse to an easy gallop.

The long rider was puzzled by his companion’s horsemanship, for Dan rode leaning far to the right of his saddle, with his head bowed. Several times Haines was on the verge of speaking, but he refrained. He commenced to sing in the exultation of freedom. An hour before he had been in the “rat-trap” with a circle of lynchers around him, and only two terror-stricken guards to save him from the most horrible of deaths. Then came Fate and tore him away and gave him to the liberty of the boundless hills. Fate in the person of this slender, sombre man. He stared at Dan with awe.

At the top of a hill his companion drew rein, reeling in the saddle with the suddenness of the halt. However, in such a horseman, this could not be. It must be merely a freak feature of his riding.

“Move,” said Dan, his breath coming in pants. “Line out and get to her.”

“To who?” said Haines, utterly bewildered.

“Delilah!”

“What?”

“Damn you, she’s waitin’ for you.”

“In the name of God, Barry, why do you talk like this after you’ve saved me from hell?”

He stretched out his hand eagerly, but Dan reined Satan back.

“Keep your hand. I hate you worse’n hell. There ain’t room enough in the world for us both. If you want to thank me do it by keepin’ out of my path. Because the next time we meet you’re goin’ to die, Haines. It’s writ in a book. Now feed your hoss the spur and run for Kate Cumberland. But remember—I’m goin’ to get you again if I can.”

“Kate—” began Haines. “She sent you for me?”

Only the yellow blazing eyes made answer and the wail of a coyote far away on the shadowy hill.

“Kate!” cried Haines again, but now there was a world of new meaning in his voice. He swung his horse and spurred down the slope.

At the next hill-crest he turned in the saddle, saw the motionless rider still outlined against the sky, and brought the bay to a halt. He was greatly troubled. For a reason mysterious and far beyond the horizon of his knowledge, Dan was surrendering Kate Cumberland to him.

“He’s doing it while he still loves her,” muttered Haines, “and am I cur enough to take her from him after he has saved me from God knows what?”

He turned his horse to ride back, but at that moment he caught the weird, the unearthly note of Dan’s whistling. There was both melancholy and gladness in it. The storm wind running on the hills and exulting in the blind terror of the night had such a song as this to sing.

“If he was a man,” Haines argued briefly with himself, “I’d do it. But he isn’t a man. He’s a devil. He has no more heart than the wolf which owns him as master. Shall I give a girl like Kate Cumberland to that wild panther? She’s mine—all mine!”

Once more he turned his horse and this time galloped steadily on into the night.

When Haines dropped out of sight, Dan’s whistling stopped. He looked up to the pitiless glitter of the stars. He looked down to the sombre sweep of black hills. The wind was like a voice saying over and over again: “Failure.” Everything was lost.

He slipped from the saddle and took off his coat. From his left shoulder the blood welled slowly, steadily. He tore a strip from his shirt and attempted to make a bandage, but he could not manage it with one hand.

The world thronged with hostile forces eager to hunt him to the death. He needed all his strength, and now that was ebbing from a wound which a child could have staunched for him, but where could he find even a friendly child? Truly all was lost! The satyr or the black panther once had less need of man’s help than had Dan, but now he was hurt in body and soul. That matchless co-ordination of eye with hand and foot was gone. He saw Kate smiling into the eyes of Haines; he imagined Bill Kilduff sitting on the back of Satan, controlling all that glorious force and speed; he saw Hal Purvis fighting venomously with Bart for the mastery which eventually must belong to the man.

He turned to the wild pair. Vaguely they sensed a danger threatening their master, and their eyes mourned for his hurt. He buried his face on the strong, smooth shoulder of Satan, and groaned. There came the answering whinny and the hot breath of the horse against the side of his face. There was the whine of Black Bart behind him, then the rough tongue of the wolf touched the dripping fingers. Then he felt a hot gust of the wolf’s breath against his hand.

Too late he realized what that meant. He whirled with a cry of command, but the snarl of Black Bart cut it short. The wolf stood bristling, trembling with eagerness for the kill, his great white fangs gleaming, his snarl shrill and guttural with the frenzy of his desire, for he had tasted blood. Dan understood as he stared into the yellow green fury of the wolf’s eyes, yet he felt no fear, only a glory in the fierce, silent conflict. He could not move the fingers of his left hand, but those of his right curved, stiffened. He desired nothing more in the world than the contact with that great, bristling black body, to leap aside from those ominous teeth, to set his fingers in the wolf’s throat. Reason might have told him the folly of such a strife, but all that remained in his mind was the love of combat—a blind passion. His eyes glowed like those of the wolf, yellow fire against the green. Black Bart crouched still lower, gathering himself for the spring, but he was held by the man’s yellow gleaming eyes. They invited the battle. Fear set its icy hand on the soul of the wolf.

The man seemed to tower up thrice his normal height. His voice rang, harsh, sudden, unlike the utterance of man or beast: “
Down!
”

Fear conquered Black Bart. The fire died from his eyes. His body sank as if from exhaustion. He crawled on his belly to the feet of his master and whined an unutterable submission.