The Border Legion, Zane Grey [books for 7th graders txt] 📗

keep from being bumped off the seat. She held to a brace on one side and to Jim on the other. And when the stage rolled down into the creek and thumped over boulders Joan made sure that every bone in her body would be broken. This crossing marked the mouth of the gulch, and on the other side the road was smooth.

“We're going the way we came,” whispered Jim in her ear.

This was surprising, for Joan had been sure that Bannack lay in the opposite direction. Certainly this fact was not reassuring to her. Perhaps the road turned soon.

Meanwhile the light brightened, the day broke, and the sun reddened the valley. Then it was as light inside the coach as outside. Joan might have spared herself concern as to her fellow-passengers. The only one who noticed her was the young man, and he, after a stare and a half-smile, lapsed into abstraction. He looked troubled, and there was about him no evidence of prosperity. Jim held her hand under a fold of the long coat, and occasionally he spoke of something or other outside that caught his eye. And the stage rolled on rapidly, seemingly in pursuit of the steady roar of hoofs.

Joan imagined she recognized the brushy ravine out of which Jesse Smith had led that day when Kells's party came upon the new road. She believed Jim thought so, too, for he gripped her hand unusually hard. Beyond that point Joan began to breathe more easily. There seemed no valid reason now why every mile should not separate them farther from the bandits, and she experienced relief.

Then the time did not drag so. She wanted to talk to Jim, yet did not, because of the other passengers. Jim himself appeared influenced by their absorption in themselves. Besides, the keen, ceaseless vigilance of the guard was not without its quieting effect. Danger lurked ahead in the bends of that road. Joan remembered hearing Kells say that the Bannack stage had never been properly held up by road-agents, but that when he got ready for the job it would be done right. Riding grew to be monotonous and tiresome. With the warmth of the sun came the dust and flies, and all these bothered Joan. She did not have her usual calmness, and as the miles steadily passed her nervousness increased.

The road left the valley and climbed between foot-hills and wound into rockier country. Every dark gulch brought to Joan a trembling, breathless spell. What places for ambush! But the stage bowled on.

At last her apprehensions wore out and she permitted herself the luxury of relaxing, of leaning back and closing her eyes. She was tired, drowsy, hot. There did not seem to be a breath of air.

Suddenly Joan's ears burst to an infernal crash of guns. She felt the whip and sting of splinters sent flying by bullets. Harsh yells followed, then the scream of a horse in agony, the stage lurching and slipping to a halt, and thunder of heavy guns overhead.

Jim yelled at her—threw her down on the seat. She felt the body of the guard sink against her knees. Then she seemed to feel, to hear through an icy, sickening terror.

A scattering volley silenced the guns above. Then came the pound of hoofs, the snort of frightened horses.

“Jesse Smith! Stop!” called Jim, piercingly.

“Hold on thar, Beady!” replied a hoarse voice. “Damn if it ain't Jim Cleve!”

“Ho, Gul!” yelled another voice, and Joan recognized it as Blicky's.

Then Jim lifted her head, drew her up. He was white with fear.

“Dear—are—you—hurt?”

“No. I'm only—scared,” she replied.

Joan looked out to see bandits on foot, guns in hand, and others mounted, all gathering near the coach. Jim opened the door, and, stepping out, bade her follow. Joan had to climb over the dead guard. The miner and the young man huddled down on their seat.

“If it ain't Jim an' Kells's girl—Dandy Dale!” ejaculated Smith. “Fellers, this means somethin'.... Say, youngster, hope you ain't hurt—or the girl?”

“No. But that's not your fault,” replied Cleve. “Why did you want to plug the coach full of lead?”

“This beats me,” said Smith. “Kells sent you out in the stage! But when he gave us the job of holdin' it up he didn't tell us you'd be in there.... When an' where'd you leave him?”

“Sometime last night—in camp—near our cabin,” replied Jim, quick as a flash. Manifestly he saw his opportunity “He left Dandy Dale with me. Told us to take the stage this morning. I expected him to be in it or to meet us.”

“Didn't you have no orders?”

“None, except to take care of the girl till he came. But he did tell me he'd have more to say.”

Smith gazed blankly from Cleve to Blicky, and then at Gulden, who came slowly forward, his hair ruffed, his gun held low. Joan followed the glance of his great gray eyes, and she saw the stage-driver hanging dead over his seat, and the guards lying back of him. The off-side horse of the leaders lay dead in his traces, with his mate nosing at him.

“Who's in there?” boomed Gulden, and he thrust hand and gun in at the stage door. “Come out!”

The young man stumbled out, hands above his head, pallid and shaking, so weak he could scarcely stand.

Gulden prodded the bearded miner. “Come out here, you!”

The man appeared to be hunched forward in a heap.

“Guess he's plugged,” said Smith. “But he ain't cashed. Hear him breathe?... Heaves like a sick hoss.”

Gulden reached with brawny arm and with one pull he dragged the miner off the seat and out into the road, where he flopped with a groan. There was blood on his neck and hands. Gulden bent over him, tore at his clothes, tore harder at something, and then, with a swing, he held aloft a broad, black belt, sagging heavy with gold.

“Hah!” he boomed. It was just an exclamation, horrible to hear, but it did not express satisfaction or exultation. He handed the gold-belt to the grinning Budd, and turned to the young man.

“Got any gold?”

“No. I—I wasn't a miner,” replied the youth huskily.

Gulden felt for a gold-belt, then slapped at his pockets. “Turn round!” ordered the giant.

“Aw, Gul let him go!” remonstrated Jesse Smith.

Blicky laid a restraining hand upon Gulden's broad shoulder.

“Turn round!” repeated Gulden, without the slightest sign of noticing his colleagues.

But the youth understood and he turned a ghastly livid hue.

“For God's sake—don't murder me!” he gasped. “I had—nothing—no gold—no gun!”

Gulden spun him round like a top and pushed him forward. They went