The Bandit of Hell's Bend, Edgar Rice Burroughs [good novels to read txt] 📗

have left you here alone at night. He set a heap o’ store by you, Miss.” Willie was emboldened to speak freely because of the darkness that would cover any sudden embarrassment he might feel if he went too far. The same darkness covered Diana’s flush-a flush of contrition that she harbored a belief in Bull’s villainy.

Before they entered Hendersville they became aware that something unusual was going on in town. They could hear the hum of excited voices above which rose an occasional shout, and as they rode into the single street they saw a hundred figures surging to and fro before Gum’s Place. A man stood on the veranda of the saloon haranguing the crowd.

“This business has gone fer enough,” he was saying as Diana and Willie paused at the outskirts of the crowd. “It’s high time we put a end to it. You all knows who’s a-Join’ it as well as I do. What we orter do is ride out ‘n git him tonight-they’s a bunch o’ cottonwoods where he is right handy an’ we got plenty o’ ropes in the cow-country. Who’s with me?”

Two score voices yelled in savage assurance of their owners’ hearty cooperation.

“Then git your bronchs,” cried the speaker, “an’ we’ll go after him an’ git him!”

Diana saw that the orator was Hal Colby. She turned to one of the men who was remaining as the majority of the others hastened after their ponies.

“What is it all about?” she asked. “What has happened?”

The man looked up at her, and as he recognized her, pulled off his hat awkwardly. “Oh, it’s you, Miss Henders! Well, you see, the stage was held up ag’in today an’ Mack Harber was kilt-it was his first trip since he was wounded that time. It was the first trip, too, since Bull quit guardin’ the gold, an’ a lot o’ the fellers has got it in their heads thet it’s Bull as done it.

“‘Tain’t no sech thing!” cried a little old man, near-by, “‘tain’t Bull.”

The speaker was Wildcat Bob. “I don’t like to think so neither,” said the first man; “but it shore looks bad fer him-the fellers is all bet up. There ain’t one in thet crowd but what would lynch his grin-maw ef he had another drink, an’ they sure hev had plenty-Gum’s bee settin’ ‘em up in there fer a couple hours on the house. Never did see Gum so plumb liberal.”

“He’s aimin’ to get someone else to go after The Black Coyote,” said Wildcat Bob, “or he wouldn’t be so doggone liberal with his rot-gut-he couldn’t git up enough nerve ef he drunk a whole distillery.”

“You think they really intend to lynch Bull?” asked the girl.

“They ain’t no two ways about it, Miss,” said the man she had first accosted. “They’re aimin’ to do it an’ I reckon they will. You see they’re pretty sore. Mack tried to put up a little fight an’ this Black Coyote feller bored him plumb between the eyes. Then he takes the gold, cuts all the bosses loose from the stage an’ vamooses. Thet’s why we didn’t hear oil it ‘til just a bit ago, cause they didn’t have no way to git to town only hoofin’ it.”

Already the avenging mob was gathering. I hey came whooping, reeling in their saddles. Not one of them, sober, would have gone out after the ex-foreman of the Bar Y, but, drunk, they forget. ‘ heir fear of him, and Diana knew that they would carry out their purpose.

They were going to lynch Bull! It seemed incredible, and yet, could she blame there? Knowing him as she did she had herself half admitted the truth of the rumor of his guilt before, this, the latest outrage, that seemed to fix the responsibility beyond peradventure of a doubt. For the six weeks that Bull had guarded the bullion there had been no holdup, and now on the very first stage day after he had been relieved the depredations had been renewed.

She recalled the fact that he had been seen with Gregorio on the very afternoon of a previous holdup; she recalled the blood upon his shirt that same day-the day that Mary Donovan had fired upon the bandits; she thought of the bag of gold dust that he had displayed at the bunkhouse. There seemed no possible avenue of escape from a belief in his guilt.

The yelling avengers were milling around in a circle in front of Gum’s Place, firing off their guns, cursing, shouting. The sheriff appeared on the veranda and raised his hand for silence.

“Ah’m sheriff yere,” he said. “an as an ahm of the law Ah cain’t permit yo-all to go fen to lynch nobody, but Ah can an’ do invite yo-all in to hev a drink on the house befo’ yo go.”

There was a wild shout of approval and a scramble for room at the tie rail. Those who lost out rode their ponies into the saloon, and as the last of them disappeared, Diana. who had lost sight of Willie in the jostle and excitement of the past few minutes, turned her pony about and rode back in the direction from which she had come.

Just beyond the last house she turned abruptly to the left-the Bar Y ranch lay to the right-urged Captain into a lope and started off through the darkness toward the west. Presently she struck a well-defined trail and then with a word and a touch of her spurs she sent Captain into a run. Swiftly the wiry animal sprang through the night while the beating of his mistress’s heart kept time to the rapid fall of his unshod hoofs.

What was she doing? Was she mad? A dozen times Diana Henders repeated those questions to herself, but the only answer was a monotonous cadence that beat upon her brain, reasonless, to the accompaniment of Captain’s flying hoofs:

They shall not kill him! They shall not kill him! They shall not kill him!

Constantly she listened for sounds of the coming of the lynching party, though she knew that she had sufficient start to outdistance them completely, even had Captain not been the fleet-and powerful runner that he was. It. was ten miles to the West Ranch from

Hendersville and Captain made it in thirty minutes that night.

Diana threw herself from the saddle at the gate and crawled through the bars, leaving Captain on wide-stretched feet and with nose to ground blowing after his hard run, knowing that he would not move from the spot for some time. She hastened to the darkened cabin and pounded on the door.

“Bull!” she cried. “Bull!” but there was no answer. Then she opened the door and entered, fumbling around for a table she found it and matches, striking one. The cabin, a one-room affair, was empty. Her ride for nothing! Bull was away, but they would hide in the brush and wait for him to come back and then they would shoot him down in cold blood, and he would never have a chance for his life. If she only knew where he had gone, she might ride out and meet him; but she did not know.

Wait! There was one chance! If he was The Black Coyote he would doubtless come in from the north or the northeast, for in the latter direction lay Hell’s Bend, the scene of his many holdups.

But it wasn’t Bull-it couldn’t be Bull-Bull, of all the men in the world, could never have robbed her, or killed her messenger.

Slowly she returned to Captain, standing with heaving sides and dilated nostrils. The animal staggered a bit as she mounted, but at a touch of the rein he turned and walked out into the sagebrush toward the north. She rode for a quarter of a mile and then she reined in her mount and called the man’s name aloud.

There was no reply and she turned to the east and rode in that direction for a while, now and then calling “Bull!” her voice sounding strange and uncanny in her own ears. In the distance a coyote yapped and wailed.

She turned and rode west to a point beyond the cabin and then back again, establishing a beat where she might hope to intercept the returning Bull before he reached the danger of the ambush. At intervals she called his name aloud, and presently she halted frequently to listen for the coming of the lynchers.

It was a matchless Arizona night. The myriad stars blazing in the blue-black vault of infinite space cast their radiance softly upon vale and height, relieving the darkness with a gentle luminosity that rendered distant objects discernible in mass, if not in form, and because of it Diana saw the black bulk of the approaching horsemen while they were yet a considerable distance away, and, seeing them, dared not call Bull’s name aloud again.

The mob rode silently now-a grim and terrible shadow creeping through the darkness to lay bloody hands upon its prey. A quarter of a mile from the cabin it halted while its members dismounted and, leaving a few to hold the horses, the balance crept stealthily’ forward on foot.

Diana, too, had dismounted, knowing that she would be less conspicuous thus, and was leading Captain over a circuitous trail toward the north and east. The girl knelt and placed an ear to the ground.

Faintly, as though at a great distance, she heard the rhythmic pounding of a horse’s hoofs. He was coming-loping through the night, Bull was coming-all unconscious of what awaited him there in the darkness. He was riding to his death. She hastened forward a short distance and listened again. If the sounds should be plainer now she would be sure that he was coming from the northeast.

The self-appointed posse crept toward the cabin and according to a general plan imparted to them by Colby, separated into two sections and surrounded it, finally worming their way close in on hands and knees, taking advantage of the cover of the sage to shield them from the sight of the man they believed to be there, then Colby arose and walked boldly to the door. Knocking, he called Bull’s name aloud. There was no response.

“Hey, Bull!” cried Colby again, in a friendly voice, “it’s Hal.” Still no reply. Colby pushed the door open and entered. Of all the motley crew that followed him he alone had the courage to do the thing that he was doing now. He struck a match and lighted a candle that stood on the rude table, embedded in its own grease in the cover of a baking powder can.

A brief survey of the interior showed him that it was untenanted. He extinguished the light and returned to his party where word was passed around that they were to remain quietly in hiding where they were until the quarry carte.

In the meantime a lone horseman had thrown himself from a half-spent pony in the Bar Y ranch yard and seeing a light in the cook-house had burst in upon the astonished cook. “What in all tarnation’s the matter of ye, Wildcat Bob?” he demanded.

“Where’s Bull?” asked the little old man.

“Reckon he’s over at the West Ranch-leastways there’s where he’s supposed to be, why?”

“Warn’t they a gang o’ the boys jest here lookin’ for him?”

“No.”

A burst of lurid profanity filled the room as Wildcat Bob explained j ust how he felt and what he thought of himself.

“They set out to lynch Bull,” he explained finally, “an’ I supposin’ o’ course thet he was here got away ahead o’ ‘em, an’ now, ding-bust my ornery of carcabs, like as not they already got him over at the West Ranch. Where’s the rest o’ the boys? Where’s Texas Pete? You don’t