Over the Border Part 16

"That ain't the question before the house, neither," Jake put in. "All I'm bothering about is whether to hang or shoot 'em. Hanging is what I was brought up to, but shooting's more fashionable down here. I'd allow they'd likely prefer it."

"Shooting's too good for 'em." In a spasm of virtuous indignation, Sliver shook his fist at the captives. "Hanging's slower an' hurts a heap, an' if it gets about that the gent that meddles with our stock is in for a slow, choking they ain't a-going to be near so careless."

"There's something in that," Jake conceded. "An' this copal's got nice stout limbs. We kin use their own riatas, an' that'll be what the Tombstone editor used to call 'poetic justice.' Hanging goes."

Bull was still staring at the raider, but, taking his consent for granted, they proceeded to fit the _riatas_ around the prisoners' necks.

Jake had, indeed, thrown the slack of the last over a bough when there came a rattle of stones and sc.r.a.pe of hoofs on the trail below. Grabbing his rifle, he slid with Bull and Sliver, each behind a tree. One second thereafter their guns were trained on the spot where the trail debouched on the plateau.

Meanwhile, with Gordon in pursuit, Lee had led the race into the hills.

Her blood mare was the fleetest animal she owned and, had she chosen, Gordon would have soon dropped out of sight. But she contented herself with just holding a lead.

Unaware of this, Gordon made repeated attempts to catch her with sudden bursts of speed. Perfectly aware of it, on her part, she would wait till his horse's head almost touched her leg, then shoot ahead with a little laugh. Her face, looking back at him, was hard as her laugh-eyes bright and shining, nose contemptuously tilted, mouth one scarlet line.

To be defied, drawn on, mocked, and teased with low, derisive laughter is not a situation that any man loves. But if thoroughly angry, mad clear to the bone, Gordon's face revealed only dogged hope. For Chance was riding with him. If Lee's beast slipped or tired. If she were a second late with the spur. One of the three was fairly certain, and the belief set a gleam in his eyes that caused her a quiver of apprehension.

"Oh, he's mad enough to beat me!" she told it to herself. "I wonder if he would."

Nevertheless, every time she looked back at that dogged face she felt a sense of security. With raiders at large, it was just as well to have him around! The thought was in her mind when, with him only a few feet behind, she shot over the edge of the last steep out upon the plateau.

"Oh, my _goodness_!" It burst from her in sudden fright.

The Three, of course, were out of sight. The natural droop of the _copal's_ outer branches hid the halters, and she saw only the four raiders, unevenly grouped, and three rifle-barrels aimed from behind the tree. As she reined her beast back on its haunches Gordon swung his animal sideways between her and the raiders, and, quite shamelessly, she accepted the protection.

"Beat it quick!"

Already he had pulled his gun, and but for the fact that Bull just then stepped out in the open the question of hanging or shooting would have been decided for at least one of the thieves. As it was, his readiness served one purpose-reduced the heat in Bull's eyes.

"Put up your gun, Son, the job's done." Pointing at Lee, he sternly inquired, "But what's _she_ doing here?"

Now fright, plus Gordon's chivalrous behavior, had driven the last vestige of anger out of Lee. She spoke before he could answer. "Don't blame him. He did his best to take me in."

"Then who shall I blame?"

"Me!" The coals of her anger sent forth a last flash that was immediately quenched by her mischievous smile. "Or blame yourself for leaving me the machete. I wiggled and wiggled till one hand was free, then cut the rope."

Combined with the smile, her little ill.u.s.trative wriggle completed his rout. He turned to hide a grin, but was betrayed by his shaking shoulders. Noting it, she flashed with feminine quickness from defendant to accuser. She pointed at the halters.

"_What are you going to do?_"

Sliver and Jake had now come out. The former answered, "We was jest about to b.u.mp 'em off, Miss."

"What? _Hang_ them?"

"Now look a-here, Lady-girl!" Sliver burst forth in indignant remonstrance. "Didn't we catch 'em red-handed? An' d'you allow we're a-going to let 'em loose to try again?"

"But _hang_ them? Just for stealing? Of course, if they were Colorados, but-" She stopped, clasping her hands in sudden fear. "Oh! they killed him-poor Pedro?"

"Nary; jes' tied him up," Sliver quickly rea.s.sured her. "I seen him wiggling through the gla.s.s, an' the big thief, there, says they didn't harm him."

Sighing with sudden relief, she returned to the charge. "Then if they spared _him_, why are you going to kill _them_?"

"Look a-here, Missy," Bull now intervened. "'Twas agreed between Benson an' all the hacendados to make an example of captured raiders. If you once start letting 'em off, there won't be a head of stock left in all this country at the end of a year. That was why I wanted you to go back, an'-"

"I'm glad that I didn't."

Up to that moment the raiders had accepted the situation with Indian stoicism. Two of them were still puffing cigarettes Sliver had placed in their mouths while Jake adjusted the nooses. But their fatalism did not preclude hope. Though Lee had spoken in English, the language of pity is universal. They knew she was interceding, and now the fellow with the pock-marked face loosed upon her a veritable torrent of Spanish.

They were poor _hombres_ with families back in their _pais_ reduced to the point of starvation by incessant revolutions. Of themselves they would never have conceived this great wickedness! They had been tempted to banditry by an evil one with the offer of a great price! For themselves, they cared not! A few kicks, a gurgle or two, and there would be an end! But their women? And the little _ninas_? These would be left in continual suffering!

Children? It drew instant response from dominant maternalism, the deep instinct that caused Lee to tyrannize over the Three. Dismounting, she began to question the prisoners concerning their families and women.

Their number, names, and s.e.x? Were they good children? Had they been duly christened by the priest? Their dispositions and traits? Thus and so on till from a lynching-bee the occasion was in danger of lapsing into a catechism. For, once started, the bandits were equally willing.

Oblivious of nooses and bonds, they plunged into family history and reminiscence, reminding each other of this or that, and while they related and recalled, the sullen hardness died out of their faces, leaving them soft and human.

Vividly, as in real life, Lee saw their corn-stalk _jacales_ with their brown wives in the doorways looking anxiously from under shading hands for their men's return; their small, nude children playing in the hot dust. Here was little Pancho, who would some day be a great _vaquero_, roping chickens and cats with a string _riata_, then dragging them, captive, to the feet of chubby Dolores, who was, as her father swore by the saints, sweet as the Infant in the arms of the Blessed Virgin. It was then that she turned to the Three, her face aglow.

"This man has three little girls. The others all have families. They were driven to steal by want. Under the same circ.u.mstances any one of us might have done the same thing. If you had and were caught, how would you feel?"

"_Under the same circ.u.mstances, they might have done the same thing!_"

She was looking at Bull, but as her glance returned at once to the prisoners she did not see him flush. He looked at Jake, who looked at Sliver, who looked away.

A busy and useful present soon buries the memory of a doubtful past, and beyond the pleasant span of to-day's existence the old rustler life of yesterday loomed very far away. The fact that, by tacit consent, it was now never mentioned among them had helped to bury it more completely.

But now, perhaps more vividly for the lapse, there rose in the mind of each the spiteful bead eyes, scorpion utterances of Don Miguel in Las Bocas, urging them to raid these very horses. Small wonder if they looked away, or that, as their glances returned, they exchanged sheepish grins.

"Under the same circ.u.mstances," Bull answered, slowly and truthfully, "_we-all 'u'd expect to hang_. But if you feel different"-his glance interrogated Sliver and Jake-"it goes as you say. On'y, if you let 'em go, we'll have to run 'em out of the country in fairness to the other haciendas."

"Of course." Lee joyfully accepted the compromise. "We'll take them home now, and to-morrow Sliver and Jake can run them out."

This settled, and while Sliver rode on down into the valley to free the _anciano_, Bull and Jake cinched the thieves securely in their saddles.

Then, driving them and the horses ahead, with Lee and Gordon following, they started down the trail.

Now the spectacle of four men trussed for hanging is not to be seen every day-let us say, on the streets of New York-and though Gordon had looked on with breathless interest, he could hardly believe that the business would have been carried to a conclusion.

"Do you really think they would?"

Lee looked at him in surprise. "Of course! You know Valles has issued orders for hacendados to shoot raiders on sight; that is"-she added it with a little sigh-"all but his own."

Her tone was so casual, he felt convicted of vast and unlimited greenness. But where, according to the lights under which he had been raised, he ought to have suffered a severe revulsion, he actually experienced a thrill. This juxtaposition of life and death, the violence and quickness with which events rang their changes, somehow stripped away the veils from the riddle of existence, reduced its complex terms to their basic factors. Here in the mountains, desert, plains, they were very simple-to eat well, sleep well, fight well, and die well, even as these thieves, comprised the whole duty of man. The thrill recorded his acceptance of the terms.

While they were riding down and down the sun lowered its great crimson orb till it hung, transfixed, on a distant peak. The mountain steeps above, spurs, and ridges beneath, were washed in its dying crimson. Deep purple filled the hollows; faint violet clothed the distant plains. Over all a cloud-flecked sky spread its parti-colored glories. Mountain and plain, canon and deep ravine, it was a scene infinitely wild, infinitely beautiful, and as he looked over it all Gordon took his breath in a deep sigh.

"This is life! I hate to leave it."

"Leave it?" If Lee's surprise was a.s.sumed, it was exceedingly well done.

She went on, with a low laugh: "Oh, I see! Papa wins out. The prodigal will return to marry the beautiful heiress and live happy ever afterward."

"Who told you? Oh, Bull, of course. Now that comes of owning a blabbing tongue. Confound him! Well, since you want to know, I won't. In my present mood, New York is the last place in the world I want to see."