Over the Border Part 5

With the word he reached swiftly for her neck, but caught only empty air. Ducking with a touch of the spur, she shot from under his hand.

The next second he was after her. Along the shallow valley for a half-mile she led, then, whirling just as he rode alongside, she shot back along the ridge. At the end he overtook her, and, antic.i.p.ating her whirl, caught her bridle rein. Leaning back, however, flat on her beast's back, laughing and panting, she was still out of his reach; and when he began to travel, hand over hand, along the bridle, she leaped down on the opposite side and dodged behind a lone _sahuaro_.

Sure of her now, he followed. But, dodging like a hare around the _sahuaro_, she came racing back for the horses; might possibly have gained them and made good her escape, if, glancing back over her shoulder, she had not seen Ramon stumble, stop, then clasp his right ankle.

"Oh, is it sprained?" she cried, running back. Then, as, reaching suddenly, he caught her, she burst out, "Cheat! oh, you miserable cheat!"

That all is fair in love and war, however, goes in all languages, and while she punctuated the struggle with customary objections whereby young maids enhance the value of a kiss, there was no anger in her protests. Wrestling her back and down, he got, at last, the laughing face upturned in the hollow of his arm; had almost reached her lips, when, with force that sent Lee to the ground, he was seized and thrown violently against the horse.

In the excitement of the chase they had completely forgotten Carleton, who had viewed its beginnings from the opposite ridge. By self-adoption he had almost, as before said, identified himself with the Spanish strain that had flowed for centuries through the _patios_ and compound of Los Arboles. He had even come to think in Spanish; in custom and manner was almost Mexican. But in moments of anger habit gives place to instinct. The instinct that first formed and later preserved the tribe, pride of race, overpowered friendship. In one second the young Mexican, whom he had regarded for years almost as a son, was trans.m.u.ted into the despised "greaser" of the border.

"You-you-" Choking with anger, eyes bits of blue flame, he strode at Ramon, fist bunched to strike.

But the blow did not fall, for, scrambling up again, Lee seized his arm from behind. "Oh, dad! dad!" Despite his struggles, she clung like a cat, defeating his efforts to shake her off. "Oh, dad! It was only a bit of fun! all my fault! I put on his hat! Please don't!"

If the young fellow had flinched, perhaps Carleton would have struck.

But, head erect, he quietly waited, and presently Carleton ceased struggling.

"All right! I'll let him go-this time. But, remember"-bringing his clenched fist in a heat of pa.s.sion into the palm of the other hand, he glared at the young man-"remember! when this girl is kissed-it will be by a man of her own breed. Get off my land!" After helping Lee to mount, he vaulted into his own saddle and rode away, driving the mares and foals before them.

In accordance with before-mentioned precedents, Ramon ought to have folded his arms and hissed a threat through gritted teeth. Instead, he stood very quietly, his face less angry than sad, watching them go. His little nod, in its firmness, would have become any young American; went very well with his thought.

"We shall see."

Mounting, he rode away to the northward, and not till he had covered many miles did he rein in his beast, so suddenly that it fell back on its haunches. His dark face expressed vexation mixed with alarm.

"Maldito! I forgot to warn them that Colorados had been seen east of the railroad. I must go back."

On their part, Lee and her father rode on toward the _hacienda_. Though he glanced at her from time to time, it was always furtively, for with a man's dislike of scenes he made no reference to that which had just pa.s.sed. Nevertheless, it filled his mind. Man-like, he had watched her develop into womanhood with scarcely a thought for her future. If he had given the subject any consideration he would probably have concluded that, sooner or later, she would choose a suitable mate from the hundreds of American miners, railroad men, ranchers, and engineers that had swarmed in the state of Chihuahua before the revolution.

But with the clear vision of after sight he now saw that he had unconsciously depended on the race pride which had just manifested itself in himself to prevent her from contracting a mesalliance. Now, with consternation, he faced the truth that racial pride is masculine; contrary to both the feminine instinct and nature's scheme of things.

"I was a fool!" he berated himself. "A d.a.m.ned fool! She will have to go north-live in the States for a while."

These and similar thoughts were whirling through his mind when they came on a band of his horses at pasture under charge of an _anciano_, a withered old _peon_, whose age and infirmities had estopped him from joining the exodus to the wars. After cautioning the old fellow not to allow the animals to stray too far, Carleton plunged again into deep meditation.

Had he not been thus preoccupied he would probably have long ago discovered the five hors.e.m.e.n who were following at a distance, using the natural cover afforded by the rolling land; for he always rode with a powerful binocular in his holster, and often swept with it the prospect.

Several times the gla.s.s would have shown him a row of heads behind the next ridge in rear. As it was, he had ridden to the crest of the rise from which they had looked down on the _hacienda_ before habit a.s.serted itself. He had no sooner leveled the gla.s.ses than an exclamation burst from his lips. "My G.o.d!"

"What is it, dad?" Lee swung in her saddle, looking back at him.

"Raiders! They are attacking Francisco! He has nothing but his staff!

He's fighting them like an old lion! My G.o.d, they're chopping him with their machetes." It came out of him in staccato phrases. "Race in and send out Juan, Lerdo, and Prudencia with rifles! Stay there! Don't dare to follow!"

Digging in his spurs, he galloped away. For a moment the girl hesitated.

Her eyes went to the _hacienda_, still half a mile away, then back to her father racing madly down the slope. There was no time to go for help! Loosening the pistol in her holster, she drove in her spurs and galloped after.

From Carleton's first appearance till the girl screamed all had pa.s.sed so quickly that the Three could only sit and gape. From their original intent to rob Carleton it was a far cry to the reconstructed impulse to succor and save him, and it speaks well for them that they accomplished the revolution as soon as they did.

The scream had not pa.s.sed unnoticed by the Colorados. The leader, who had turned to ride on, swung his beast, looked, then, as the girl dropped from the saddle to her knees beside the wounded man, drove in his spurs and galloped toward her. Heedless of her own danger, Lee was trying to stanch with her handkerchief the bloodflow from Carleton's chest, so lost in her agonized grief that she did not look up till the Colorado leaped down and seized her.

In this world there are savages who would have respected, for the time at least, her white grief. But this was the man who had tortured the miner and his _peones_; driven the latter naked through spiky cactus after he had cut the soles off their feet. She sprang up when he seized her, and as she fought bitterly, beating away his black, evil face with her little fists, his strident laughter mingled with her wild sobbing and carried to Bull behind the ridge.

For three days this man's boast had rung in his brain: "We've killed your men, outraged your women!" But though anger blazed within him, his tone was icy cold. "Look after the others. I'll 'tend to him!"

He had already pulled his rifle from the sling under his leg. Raising it now, he lined the sights, the same sights that had directed a ball through the brain of Livingstone's horse. While Lee writhed and twisted in the Colorado's arms, he dared not shoot. He waited until, at the double crack of his companions' rifles, two of the other Colorados pitched headlong from their saddles. Then, as their leader paused to look and, with a swift wrench, Lee tore loose and let daylight between them, the rifle spoke, sent its bullet whistling through his brain.

"Keep after them!" Bull called back as he rode on over the ridge.

But already Jake and Sliver's rifles were barking like hungry dogs.

Trained to a hair in guerrilla warfare, the remaining Colorados had spurred their beasts behind the horse herd. At the first shot the band had stampeded, and now, urged on by the yells of the fugitives, who rode crouched on their horses' necks, the scared animals coursed swiftly down the valley.

"The gall of them! _Our_ horses!" Repeating his former observation, Sliver would have ridden after.

But Jake caught his bridle. His bleak eyes were scintillating like sunlit icicles. His lean, avid face quivered with subdued ferocity.

"Don't be a d.a.m.n fool! They're only using 'em for cover! We'll shoot along this side of the ridge an' catch 'em at the end of the valley!"

Meanwhile Bull rode on down the slope. After a surprised stare that showed her rescuers to be Americans, Lee had knelt again beside her father. As before said, Bull was no beauty. His black beard, bushy brows, hot red eyes, drink-blotched face, were of themselves sufficient to frighten a woman. Yet when she looked up sympathy illumined his countenance till it shone in her distressed sight as a clear lamp radiating human feeling. Without fear or doubt she turned to him for help.

"It's my father! I'm afraid-Can't you do something?"

So far Carleton had lain with his eyes closed. Now he opened them and spoke in detached whispers as Bull knelt by his side. "You're-American.

I told her not to follow. Don't bother-with me. I'm shot-through lungs and stomach-bleeding inside. Get Lee-back to the house."

"Plenty of time," Bull soothed him. As a crackle of rifle-fire turned loose in the distance, followed by sudden silence, he added, "That 'ull be the last o' the Colorados. I'll fix you a bit, an' when my fellows come back we'll jest pack you home."

With a plainsman's skill in crude surgery, he tore up Carleton's shirt to make a pad and bandage which he twisted with a stick till the blood-flow stopped. This was no more accomplished before Jake and Sliver rode up, driving the horses ahead.

"They won't cut no more soles offen people's feet," Jake answered Bull's questioning look.

"Fine and dandy." Bull nodded. "You, Jake, rope a fresh horse outer the band an' ride like h.e.l.l to the railroad an' wire El Paso for a doctor."

"No!" Lee eagerly suggested. "Wire the American Club at Chihuahua. These dreadful days all gringos help one another."

Freshly horsed, five minutes thereafter, Jake galloped away-but not before, cold, crafty, laconic, dissolute gambler as he was, he had left a comforting word in the girl's ear. "Don't you be skeered, Miss. I'll bring out a doctor, if I have to ride inter El Paso an' raid a hospital."

As he went out of sight over the next roll Sliver, with the girl's aid, lifted the wounded man up to Bull in the saddle. So for the second time within three days did the giant rustler bear like a child in his arms a _gringo_ victim of the Mexican revolution. To the leaven that had been working within him was now added the most powerful influence that can be brought to bear on a man-a woman's heartbroken sobbing.

VI: BULL TURNS NURSE

Pa.s.sing over into the next valley, they came on the body of old Francisco, hacked almost to bits. So far Lee had kept a strong grip on herself. But now she burst out crying.

"The poor fellow! He was faithful as a dog. We saw them cut him down, and that caused dad to lose his head. Otherwise he would never have tried to pursue them alone."

"He was old-an' died a man's death," Bull offered her rough comfort.