The Round-Up Part 28

Jumping behind a rock, he pulled his revolver, covering the insensible man. It might be a trap. He scanned the trail, the cliff, the canon.

Hearing and seeing nothing, he slipped his revolver into his holster and hurried to d.i.c.k's side. At first he did not recognize him. The desert and thirst had wrought many changes in his friend's face.

When recognition came, he threw his arms about the prostrate form, crying: "d.i.c.k, at last, at last!"

His voice was broken with emotion. The search had been so long, so weary, and the ending so sudden. He had found d.i.c.k, but it looked as if he came too late.

Gathering d.i.c.k up in his arms, he raised him until his head rested on his knees. Forcing open his mouth, he poured a little water down his throat.

Then with a moistened handkerchief he wetted temples and wrists. Slowly d.i.c.k struggled back to life.

"Water--water--it's water!" he gasped, struggling for more of the precious fluid.

"Easy," cautioned Jack. "Only a little now--more when you're stronger."

"Who is it?" cried d.i.c.k. Not waiting for Jack to enlighten him, he continued: "No matter--you came in time. I couldn't have held out any longer. All the springs are dry--I figured on reaching Clearwater."

Jack helped d.i.c.k to his feet. Taking his stricken friend's right arm, he drew it across his shoulders. With his left arm about his waist, Jack led him to a seat upon a convenient rock.

"I came by Clearwater yesterday," explained Jack. "It is nothing but mud and alkali."

"My horse dropped three days ago. I had to shoot the pack-mule. I--"

d.i.c.k opened his eyes under the ministrations of Jack. Gazing upward into his face, he shouted joyfully:

"Why--it's Jack--Jack Payson."

"Didn't you know me, d.i.c.k?" asked Jack sympathetically.

"Not at first--my eyes went to the bad out yonder in the glare."

The effort had been too much for d.i.c.k. He sat weakly over Jack's knees. Jack turned him partly on his back, and let more water trickle down his throat.

d.i.c.k clutched madly at the canteen, but Jack drew it back out of his reach. With his handkerchief he moistened lips and neck. When d.i.c.k's strength returned, Jack helped him to sit up.

"I've been hunting you for months," he told him.

"Hunting for me?" echoed d.i.c.k.

"Yes," answered Jack. "I traced you through the Lost Cities, then to c.o.o.ney, then up in the Tularosas. At Fort Grant they put me on the right trail."

As the clouds break, revealing the blue of the heavens, so d.i.c.k's memory came back to him. He shrank from the man at his side.

"Well?" he asked, as he stared at his betrayer.

Jack gazed fixedly ahead. He dared not look in the face of him he had wronged so bitterly.

"She wants you," he said, in a voice void of all emotion.

"Who wants me?" asked d.i.c.k, after a pause.

"Echo."

"Your wife?" gritted d.i.c.k. He fingered his gun as he spoke.

Huskily Jack replied: "Yes."

Bitter thoughts filled the mind of one; the other had schooled himself to make atonement. For the wrong he had done, Jack was ready to offer his life. He had endured the full measure of his sufferings. The hour of his delivery was at hand. Hard as it was to die in the midglory of manhood, it was easier to end it all here and now, than to live unloved by Echo, hated by d.i.c.k, despised by himself.

"She sent me to find you. 'Bring him back to me.' That's what she said," Jack cried, in his agony.

"Your wife--she said that?" faltered d.i.c.k.

Fiercely in his torture Jack answered: "Yes--my wife--my wife said it.

'Bring him back to me.'"

"Back?" d.i.c.k paused. "Back to what?" he asked himself. "She's your wife, isn't she?" he demanded.

"That's what the law says," answered Jack.

With the thought of the evening in the garden when he heard Jack and Echo p.r.o.nounced man and wife surging over him, d.i.c.k murmured: "What G.o.d hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

"That's what the Book says," answered Jack. "But when hands alone are joined and hearts are asunder, it can't go on record as the work of G.o.d."

d.i.c.k bowed his head in his hands. "I don't understand."

Stubbornly Jack pursued his message to d.i.c.k. "She doesn't love me. I thought I had won her, but she married me with your image in her heart.

She married me, yet all the while you were the man she loved--you--you--and in the end I found it out."

Jack's voice sank almost into a whisper as he finished his revelation to d.i.c.k, who raised his head and cried: "And yet she broke her faith with me--"

Jack arose in his misery. His task was harder than he expected. d.i.c.k was forcing him to tell all without concealing even the smallest trifle of his shame.

"She thought--you were dead. I never told her otherwise. I lied to her--I lied to her."

"She never knew?" asked d.i.c.k joyfully. "The letter--?"

"I never gave it to her," answered Jack simply.

d.i.c.k leaped to his feet, pulling his revolver from his holster. "And I thought her false to her trust!" He aimed his gun at Payson's heart.

"I ought to kill you for this!"

Jack spread out his arms and calmly replied: "I'm ready."

d.i.c.k dropped his gun and slipped it into the holster with a gesture of despair. "But it's too late now, too late!"

In his eagerness to tell d.i.c.k the way he had solved the problem, Jack spoke nervously and quickly. "No, it isn't too late. There's one way out of this--one way in which I can atone for the wrong I've done you both, and I stand ready to make that atonement. It is your right to kill me, but it is better that you go back to her without my blood on your hands--"

"Go--back--to her?" questioned d.i.c.k, as the meaning of the phrase slowly dawned upon him.

"Yes," said Jack, holding out his hands. "Go back with clean hands to Echo Allen. It is you she loves. There's my horse up yonder. Beyond, there're the pack-mule loaded with water and grub. Plenty of water.