Will H. Thompson

“ The bank on this side is a basalt bluff twenty feet high; the opposite bank is low, and a trail leads up a ravine from the water to the Obsidian Hills. Tigre knows the trail, but he forgot the storm. Do you hear the roar of the river? It is filled with jagged blocks of basalt, and the flood is now a regular water-cyclone. No horse or man that ever lived could cross it. The game is bagged. There is a heavy thicket along the bluff on this side of the river and he will be in the brush. There will be a fight. Every man must cover himself as best he can. Take no chances on Tigre Palladis. ”

“ But before the pursuit could be taken up the storm came over the Obsidian Hills and broke upon the valley with lightning, thunder, roaring wind and such a downpour of rain that within half an hour the river could not be crossed except by a detour of many miles, and then only by leading our horses singly upon a frail swinging bridge intended only for pedestrians. ”

“ No small tracks were beside his, nor were there any traces of a dragged body. Evidently in his flight from the grasp of the river Tigre had not turned to look for his pursuers, nor down the stream for the poor girl’s body, if the hand of murder had given it to the waves.
“A hush of awe and horror fell upon us, and many seconds passed before it was broken by Cady’s low, masterful voice:
“‘Pico, take two men, go down to the mouth of Alkali Wash and watch for the body. All the drift swings in there when the water is high. Ride fast and you will be in time. ”

“ It was a wild ride and there were thirty wild men riding. Pico, half crazed by the horror of his daughter’s possible fate, urging on with brief, inflammatory appeals the already excessive ardor of the pursuers; Cady, silent and alert, rode a rod or two in advance, followed by Kenneth, Pico’s foreman, a gigantic Scotchman, a violent man of great physical power and energy. I rode with Pico when the exigencies of the trail permitted. ”

“ We struck the trail two miles from the river, at the point where the ravine rose to the level of the mesa, and followed it across rugged country—hard upon our horses, and harder, too, it must have been, for the indomitable man who crossed it on foot, keeping a direct course for the mountains. ”

“ What exhaustless fountain of infernal energy supplied the strength to maintain this reckless waste? Many times we asked ourselves this question as hour after hour we urged on our flagging horses. No animal is equal to man at his best, and here, I think, was Nature’s masterpiece. ”

“ TIGRE and ISOLA
by Will H. Thompson
Author of “The High Tide at Gettysburg”
It seldom rains in Arizona. The narrow valleys that drain southward into Mexico are the most arid in America. But, on the night old Nuñez Pico died, a black cloud rolled over the ragged rim of the Canille Mountains, dragged itself slowly along, was ripped by the granite teeth, collapsed, and fell in a deluge of rain. The bare stone shoulders of the mountain heaved the floods into the canyons, from whose monstrous throats it came bellowing into the valley. The river-bed was overbrimmed and the lowland became a sea. ”

“ Dismounted, we followed down the gorge until we reached the outlet and noted the heavy wall of brush that hid the river from our view. Beyond this the rage of the waters made itself manifest in terrible bellowings. Cady said:
“‘There may be trouble in the first fifty yards of open ground, and every man must make straight to the thicket. Move rapidly. If Tigre fires, riddle the spot from which the shot comes, and run in upon him. Shoot him down ”