J. Allan Dunn

“ Her wrists were still bound, and their lashing was attached to the horn of her saddle over which her reins were draped. He had attached a leading rein to her horse's bridle. His face was still tender from the removal of the tar with which Sheridan had smeared it, inflamed by liquor, the sun and the hellish furnace stoking within his soul. He regarded his captive with a gloating grin that faded gradually, giving place to fury, as she absolutely disregarded him, his taunts, his threats. The glance she occasionally gave him seared him with its steady flame of purity and disdain. ”

“ But now, with his pipe drawing freely, he asked the question that was rising to the lips of all the defenders of the cave, save Quong the Imperturbable. To watch Quong, cooking, detached from all but his immediate task, made the knife-fight appear like a dream.
"How did you get here, in the nick of time, Mary?" he asked. He called her Mary frankly enough before all of them. Any other title would have seemed inadequate. The fact was patent that he was her lover, equally so that she would not resent it, and he knew that all the group, riders, sheriff, Quong, were gentlemen. ”

“ There were patches of golden California poppies, the place was ablaze with color and redolent with scent of juniper, cedar, pine and manzanita, yucca blossoms, greasewood, sage, in one exquisite blend.
"Isn't the air wonderful?" asked the girl, riding the trail a little ahead of Sheridan while he admired the brave way she carried herself, the lithe seat, the square, boyish way in which she sat her saddle, all curves and yet all efficient, strength mated to symmetry. ”

“ They hated a liar and a braggart, they loved a good story. They gambled, they drank—whenever they could get it. Nearly all of them were shy of women; their stories were far more decent than the average run among men of their rank.
All of them had streaks of adventure, of romance, of poetry. There was Jackson's love of the fiddle. Sheridan had seen Stoney sit like a statue on his horse for half an hour gazing at a sunset. Their play was as vigorous as their work. ”

“ It was a wagon! Thick with fine dust, its tires rotted, sagging to one side where the wheels had collapsed. Traces and harness, withered and rotten, showed on each side of the pole where the horses had been taken out. This must be one of the treasure wagons; the horses must have bolted in their frenzy and under the lashing of frantic drivers, through the sliding earth, into the false safety of the cave.
His shout brought the rest to him. A blow from a pick proved the whole fabric rotten. Under their efforts it went crumbling down in a cloud of dust and the smell of decayed wood. ”

“ As she straightened up from her meal, she saw something that made her shrink back against the wall of the cave, horror tingling over her scalp and down her spine, seeming to bristle the soft hairs of her neck. Two greenly lambent eyes glowed in the dark entrance, she caught the inquisitive sniff of some wild beast that had scented the bacon, or her. Her hands were tied. She was utterly defenceless against claws and fangs. The eyes lowered and she imagined the head of a mountain lion sinking as the brute crouched for a spring. To move was to invite destruction. ”

“ Sheridan did not use his mare for ordinary ranch work and she was fresh. The ewe-necked roan wanted nothing better than to run but they held them in to a steady lope, the horses' heads high, nostrils distended to the cooling evening wind, redolent with spicy herbage. Again the afterglow was brilliant back of Ghost Mountain, spired against the glowing clouds, pink to the sunset that rayed its topmost crags and left the timberline black and shaggy. They had to ride through the pass and around the range to the Pioche side. Fifteen miles to go, against twelve from Metzal. ”

“ Falling men, stricken horses. The rush of the bandits, the dead left for the coyotes and the buzzards. He had glimpsed the robber stronghold with its women, its lawlessness. Quong was a conjuror of words, his style of speech, almost a monotone, had flawless technique in the art of story telling. Sheridan saw, too, Juan Mendoza, sidling like a crab among the patrons of the opium rooms, worshiping Quong, his god, who gave him surcease, telling him his secret. ”

“ The cave was filled with terrors, past, overcome, but leaving the stamp of ordeal. Nor could she endure the bare thought of remaining in a cave where Hollister might find her, blind as he was. The memory of the spurts of fire from his gun, the spatter of bullets, the thud of the spent missile against the inner side of the niche, was too real. She went to the entrance, craning out, looking for Hollister. He might be hiding near. A sound, the scuffle of loosened shale, might give him what he was waiting for, some sense of her whereabouts and direction.
There was no man in sight. ”

“ Stoney was never a man of words, a lack that had been bad for him under the recriminations of his mates for his spoiling of good food. Sheridan had his mouth half full of staples most of the time, and Hollister, and the ways to get rid of such undesirables, filled his mind.
All hands, save Rand and Jackson, were washing up at the trough they used for the purpose, half a score of rangy chaps, sun-browned and sun-dried, splashing and laughing and all watching Quong, who was plucking chickens for supper, speculating on how he was going to serve it. ”

“ The pitiless sunrays smashed down, drying the tissues of her mouth, burning her exposed wrists. Her lips began to crack and her tongue to swell. Lack of food assailed her. Hope began to dwindle. She knew every swallow Hollister took of the liquor in his flask added fuel to the fire of his intentions. He seemed hardened against the stuff and the possibility of his collapse under its influence became remote. She concentrated every failing faculty in petition to her God, for a way of escape to open, even if it had to lead through the gate to death. ”

“ Despite his endeavor to adopt the manner of Quong there was a flash to Sheridan's eye and a ring to his voice that told of his spirit being in his plan.
"Modern altruism," said Quong quietly. "But possible. You mean to love your neighbor as yourself, Mr. Sheridan. You would make them prosperous against their own wills. In China, if such a scheme were possible, I should order the land owners to come in and pocket most of the profit as a tribute to my own brains. But you set an example of true democracy." ”

“ The fighting spirit that had brought her to the wilderness, that promised with the aid of Thora ultimately to turn the Hidden Homestead into a paying ranch, he could understand. It was transmitted to her from clean-blooded, vigorous stock. And he could only think that the same attributes furnished her with a brain so well nourished that she was able to see things with a clear, wide vision. He did not flatter himself that her sight might be stimulated by a personal interest in Peter Sheridan. ”

“ Lake of the Woods lay like a fire opal, holding as a mirror the shifting rose and violet of the sky. The trees came thickly down, close to its sloping beach and stabbed the water with their shadows. Back of it rose the splintered crags of Ghost Mountain, El Monte del Muerte, the Mount of Death, as the Mexicans and Indians called it; remote, inaccessible, a sheer wall of granite, ground smooth to glassiness by a thousand centuries of driving, sand-laden winds, planed, perhaps, by ancient glaciers ”

“ This time his right hand caught the knife-wrist of Hsu Fu, tugged downwards, jerking Hsu forwards, off his balance, caught unaware. And Quong's left hand and arm shot across the barrier of their two right arms, swift and sure as the strike of an eagle in an overhanded curve. The point of his blade sank into Hsu Fu's abdomen with the sharp skreel of steel against bone as it slid over the hip and ripped across the undefended stomach. Hsu Fu pitched forward as Quong released him, blood spouting from the frightful wound and fell in the growing puddle of it ”

“ Quong was hunched up on the pony, both hands on the horn and reins. He jerked to the trot, making a poor figure of it yet, curiously, there were no covert smiles on the faces of the cowboys. His awkwardness was still pervaded by a certain dignity. Moreover, a cowman has his points of etiquette and of fitness. It would never have occurred to them to "kid the cook". A chef, be he white, brown, black or olive, is a personage on a ranch, to be propitiated rather than to poke fun at, even when he was as poor a cook as Stoney, pressed into the kitchen by circumstance and not by his own desire. ”

“ The greenish-yellow body, stamped with a connected chain of brown, diamond-shaped blotches, outlined in white, the vivid black and white bars of the tail, the uplifted rattle, were indelibly photographed upon Sheridan's memory. For a few heartbeats man and snake faced each other, both alert, the one determined, the other defiant. Sheridan could have blown off that proudly balanced head with its undulating tongue and beady eyes, but a shot would have defeated his purpose with Hollister. ”

“ Again and again it sounded with splintering crashes while Thora groped vainly for matches and then sprang for the doorway between the bedroom and living room. The outer door split, gave way at the hinges and fell flat while, over it, with oaths and shouts and gleaming lanterns, the five marauders rushed in. They paused for a second at the sight of Thora, filling the inner doorway, towering, white clad, her eyes ablaze, her hands curved to clutch.
"Get her out of the road," cried Hollister and two jumped at her. ”

“ Sheridan rode Goldie, the sorrel mare, quite recovered from her lameness, Jackson the horse that once was Hollister's, a dark bay that was beginning to respond to Red's gentling; a proceeding that at first had startled it by sheer novelty. Quong rode in the wagon that carried the tools behind a lusty team, destined to haul back the gold—if they found it—in two or more trips. One of the cowboys drove, the two others had their mounts.
A ton of gold would be hard hauling over the soft desert soil. ”

“ Hollister found himself jammed in, sandwiched between the roan and the sorrel; he felt the knee of Sheridan against the hollow of his own, the same on Jackson's side. For all the fire of the whisky he was suddenly a little chill.
"Hollister," said Sheridan, "you are a parasite, a predatory parasite. I'll translate that into a word of one syllable so you can't mistake what I mean. You're a louse. You live in dirt and, when you happen to be where it is clean, you show up all the stronger for the vermin you are. ”

“ Old chairs with fiddle and spindle backs, an ancient mirror and a yet more ancient clock, hand-woven rugs and carpets, some cushions and curtains for the windows; it made a brave and comfortable show, and the two women surveyed it with satisfaction.
"It makes the place look like a real home, Thora," said Mary, who was sewing at some stuff, to Thora, darning stockings.
Thora nodded her head and finished her criss-cross.
"It bane hard for just two women to make a home," she said. "They bane keep everything too much in place; home needs a man—and kiddies—to make it real complete." ”

“ Glittering stars pierced the sky and made a half-light, a star dusk, but they figured that the cruel gang gathered under Hollister would wait to see more of the punishment they intended to inflict than this would reveal. They would want to see their victim cringe as the hot tar smeared his naked flesh, to see to strike as he ran the ruthless gauntlet down into the desert that would receive him as a horrible travesty of man and desiccate him to the semblance of a mummied bird. ”

“ Mary Burrows looked a trifle anxious but Thora's blood was up. And there was a method back of the sport she proposed.
Hollister was not wearing a coat. He rolled up his sleeve from his hairy, corded arm, displaying muscles that might be a little flabby from drink and lack of exercise but which showed powerfully. The little frown on the girl's face deepened and Sheridan felt apprehensive that Thora might go down to defeat. A small thing might turn the tide. To pass the affair off without disturbance was the prime thing. Hollister, triumphant, might prove difficult to handle with gloves. ”

“ Sheridan was pumping lead at a horseman on a piebald pony, a man clad in a striped serape and wearing a Mexican sun sombrero who had spurred out of a draw beyond the chayas and was heading towards the gap in the range, dodging behind clumps of cactus, deliberately weaving a zigzag course to escape Sheridan's accuracy of fire. ”

“ The three riders were asleep, the wounded man lying with his head pillowed on Red's lap. Sheridan was not so much on watch as unable to sleep. Quong's eyes were closed but every now and then the lids opened to show glittering slits of wakefulness. Occasionally there were sounds high above as if the cold was loosening, shifting the clay already loosened by the blasting. ”

“ Then, as the light died in crimson and purple, fading to amber and amethyst, they gazed across the mesa in a comradeship that had really started when she had said she would like to do what Sheridan proposed.
"My grandfather often came up here to see the sunset," she said. "He made this trail. But I don't think he ever saw such a vision as you have made me see. Soon the mesa there will shine with its own stars of night, stars hatched at the Lake of the Woods power house. And the day will show the green fields and the sturdy cattle, the water stretching out in silver wands. ”