Shoe-Bar Stratton Part 37

For full half a minute he sat motionless, his face distorted with baffled fury and swiftly growing fear. Then his eyes flashed toward the hills on the right and swept them searchingly. A second later he had turned his cayuse and was speeding towards a narrow break between two spurs, keeping a tight hold on the girl's bridle.

"You try any monkey tricks," he flung back over one shoulder, "and I'll--kill yuh."

Mary made no answer, but the savage ferocity of his tone made her shiver, and she instantly abandoned the plan she had formed of trying, by little touches of hand and heel, to make Freckles still further hamper Lynch's actions. Through the settling dust-haze she had seen the cause of his perturbation--a single horseman less than a mile away galloping straight toward them--and felt that her enemy was cornered. But the very strength of her exultation gave her a pa.s.sionate longing for life and happiness, and she realized vividly the truth of Lynch's callous, sneering words, that when one actually got down to it, it was not an easy thing to die.

She must take no chances. Surely it could be only a question of a little time now before she would be free.

But presently her high confidence began to fade. With the manner of one on perfectly familiar ground, Lynch rode straight into the break between the rocks, which proved to be the entrance to a gully that widened and then turned sharply to the right. Here he stopped and ordered Mary to ride in front of him.

"You go ahead," he growled, flinging her the reins. "Don't lose any time, neither."

Without question she obeyed, choosing the way from his occasional, tersely flung directions. This led them upward, slowly, steadily with many a twist and turn, until at length, pa.s.sing through a narrow opening in the rocks, Mary came out suddenly on a ledge scarcely a dozen feet in width. On one side the cliffs rose in irregular, cluttered ma.s.ses, too steep to climb.

On the other was a precipitous drop into a canon of unknown depth.

"Get down," ordered Lynch, swinging out of his saddle.

As she slid to the ground he handed her his bridle-reins.

"Take the horses a ways back an' hold 'em," he told her curtly. "An'

remember this: Not a peep out of yuh, or it'll be yore last. n.o.body yet's double-crossed me an' got away with it, an' n.o.body ain't goin' to--not even a woman. That canon's pretty deep, an' there's sharp stones a-plenty at the bottom."

White-faced and tight-lipped, she turned away from him without a word and led the two horses back to the point he indicated. The ledge, which sloped sharply upward, was cluttered with loose stones, and she moved slowly, avoiding these with instinctive caution and trying not to glance toward the precipice. A dozen feet away she paused, holding the horses tightly by their bridles and pressing herself against the lathered neck of Freckles, who she knew was steady. Then she glanced back and caught her breath with a swift, sudden intake.

Kneeling close to the opening, but a little to one side, Lynch was whirling the cylinder of his Colt. Watching him with fascinated horror, Mary saw him break the weapon, closely inspect the sh.e.l.ls, close it again, and test the trigger. Then, revolver gripped in right hand, he settled himself into a slightly easier position, eyes fixed on the opening and head thrust a little forward in an att.i.tude of listening.

Only too well she guessed his purpose. He was waiting in ambush to "get"

that solitary horseman they had seen riding from the north. Whether or not he had come here for the sole purpose of luring the other to his death, Mary had no notion. But she could see clearly that once this stranger was out of the way, Lynch would at least have a chance to penetrate into the mountains before the others from the south arrived to halt him.

Slowly, interminably the minutes ticked away as the girl stood motionless, striving desperately to think of something she might do to prevent the catastrophe. If only she had some way of knowing when the stranger was near she might cry out a warning, even at the risk of Lynch's violence.

But thrust here in the background as she was, the unknown was likely to come within range of Lynch's gun before she even knew of his approach.

Suddenly, out of the dead silence, the clatter of a pebble struck on the girl's raw nerves and made her wince. She saw the muscles of Lynch's back stiffen and the barrel of his Colt flash up to cover the narrow entrance to the ledge. For an instant she hesitated, choked by the beating of her heart. Should she cry out? Was it the man really coming? Her dry lips parted, and then all at once a curious, slowly moving object barely visible above the rocky shoulder that sheltered Lynch, startled her and kept her silent.

In that first flash she had no idea what it was. Then abruptly the truth came to her. It was the top of a man's Stetson. The ledge sloped upward, and where she stood it was a good two feet higher than at the entrance. A man was riding up the outer slope and, remembering the steepness of it, Mary knew that, in a moment, more of him would come into view before he became visible to Lynch.

White-faced, dry-lipped, she waited breathlessly. Now she could see the entire hat. A second later she glimpsed the top of an ear, a bit of forehead, a sweeping look of dark-brown hair--and her heart died suddenly within her.

The man was Buck Green!

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE FIGHT ON THE LEDGE

In that instant of supreme horror, Mary Thorne found time to be thankful that terror struck her momentarily dumb. For now, with lips parted and a cry of warning trembling there, she saw that it was too late. Like a pointer freezing to the scent, Lynch's whole body had stiffened; one hand gripped the leveled Colt, a finger caressed the trigger. At this juncture a cry would almost surely bring that tiny, muscular contraction which might be fatal.

From behind the ledge Buck's hat had disappeared, and a faint creak of saddle-leather told the girl that he had dismounted and by so doing must have moved a trifle out of range.

Sick with horror and desperation, the girl's eye fell upon a stone lying at her feet--a jagged piece of granite perhaps twice the size of a baseball. In a flash she dropped the bridle-reins and, bending, caught it up stealthily. Freckles p.r.i.c.ked his ears forward, but with a fleeting, imploring touch of one hand against his sweaty neck, Mary steadied herself for a moment, slowly drew back her arm, and, with a fervent, silent prayer for strength, she hurled the stone.

It grazed Lynch's face and struck his wrist with a force that jerked up the barrel of the revolver. The spurt of flame, the sharp crack of the shot, the clatter of the Colt striking the edge of the precipice, all seemed to the girl to come simultaneously. A belated second afterward Lynch's furious curses came to her. With dilated eyes she saw him s.n.a.t.c.h frantically at the sliding weapon, and as it toppled out of sight into the canon barely an inch ahead of his clutching, striving fingers, she thrilled with sudden fierce joy.

"Curse you!" he frothed, springing up and rushing at her. "You--"

"Buck!" she screamed. "Quick! His gun's gone! He--"

A blow from his fist struck her mouth and flung her backward against the horse. Half fainting, she saw Freckles lunge over her shoulder and heard the vicious click of his teeth snapping together. But Lynch, ducking out of reach of the angry horse, caught Mary about the waist and dragged her toward the precipice.

Involuntarily she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, stirred by the curious silence and the sudden cessation of all movement, she found herself staring dazedly into the face of Buck Green.

He stood very quietly just inside the narrow entrance to the ledge, not more than ten feet from her. In one hand was a six-shooter; the other hung straight at his side, the fingers tightly clenched. As he met her bewildered glance, his eyes softened tenderly and the corners of his lips curved in a momentary, rea.s.suring smile. Then abruptly his face froze again.

"Yuh take another step an' down she'll go," said a hoa.r.s.e voice close to the girl's ear.

It was Lynch; and Mary, her senses clearing, knew whose hands gripped her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. Glancing sidewise, she hastily averted her eyes. She was standing within six inches of the edge of the precipice. For the first time she could look down into those sheer depths, and even that hurried glimpse made her shiver.

"Well, I admit you've got the bulge on me, as it were." Buck's voice suddenly broke the silence. "Still, I don't see how you're going to get out of this hole. You can't stand like this forever."

Mary stared at him, amazed at his cool, drawling, matter-of-fact tone. She was still more puzzled to note that he seemed to be juggling with his revolver in a manner which seemed, to say the least, extraordinarily careless.

"I can stand here till I get tired," retorted Lynch. "After that-- Well, I'd as soon end up down there as get a bullet through my ribs. One thing, I wouldn't go alone."

"Suppose I offered to let you go free if you give up Miss Thorne?"

Stratton asked with sudden earnestness.

"Offer? h.e.l.l! Yuh can't fool me with that kind of talk. Not unless yuh hand over yore gun, that is. Do that, an' I might consider the proposition--not otherwise."

Buck hesitated, his eyes flashing from the weapon he whirled so carelessly between his fingers to Lynch, whose eyes regarded him intently over the girl's shoulder.

"That would be putting an awful lot of trust in you," he commented. "Once you had the gun, what's to prevent you from drilling me--Oh, d.a.m.n!"

He made a sudden, ineffectual grab at the gun, which had slipped from his fingers, and missed. As the weapon clattered against the rocks, Lynch's covetous glance followed it involuntarily. What happened next was a bewildering whirl of violent, unexpected action.

To Mary it seemed as if Buck cleared the s.p.a.ce between them in a single amazing leap. He landed with one foot slipping on the ragged edge of the precipice, and apparently threw his whole weight sidewise against Lynch and the girl he held. Just how it happened she did not know, but in another moment Mary found herself freed from those hateful, gripping hands and flung back against her horse, while at her feet the two men grappled savagely.

Over and over on the narrow confines of the sloping ledge they struggled fiercely, heaving, panting, with muscles cracking, each seemingly possessed with a grim determination to thrust the other into the abyss.

Now Buck was uppermost; again Lynch, by some clever trick, tore himself from Stratton's hold to gain a momentary advantage.

Like one meshed in the thralls of some hateful nightmare, the girl crouched against her horse, her face so still and white and ghastly that it might well have been some clever sculptor's bizarre conception of "Horror" done in marble. Only her eyes seemed to live. Wide, dilated, glittering with an unnatural light, they shifted constantly, following the progress of those two writhing bodies.

Once, when Lynch's horse snorted and moved uneasily, she caught his bridle and quieted him with a soothing word, her voice so choked and hoa.r.s.e that she scarcely knew it. Again, as the men rolled toward the outer side of the ledge and seemed for a moment almost to overhang the precipice, she gave a smothered cry and darted forward, moved by some wild impulse to fling her puny strength into the scale against the outlaw.

But with a heave of his big body, Buck saved himself as he had done more than once before, and the struggle was resumed. Back and forth they fought, over and over around that narrow s.p.a.ce, until Mary was filled with the dazed feeling that it had been going on for ever, that it would never end.

But not for an instant did she cease to follow every tiny variation of the fray, and of a sudden she gave another cry. Gripped in a fierce embrace, the two men rolled toward the entrance to the ledge, and all at once Mary saw one of Lynch's hands close over and instantly seize the revolver Buck had dropped there.