The Bandit of Hell's Bend - Edgar Rice Burroughs (reading tree .txt) 📗

IT was ten o’clock that morning before Bull, Texas Pete and Shorty picked up Colby’s trail and by that time the man and his unwilling companion were a good four hours ahead of them. On tired horses, through the heat of a blazing Arizona day, it seemed hopeless to expect to overhaul their quarry before night had fallen and by that time Colby would have crossed the border. Not however that that meant much to the three who pursued him, to whom international boundary lines were of no more practical import than parallels of latitude or isothermal lines.

Before noon they were obliged to stop and rest their horses at a water hole that afforded a brackish but refreshing drink for the three jaded animals. In the mud at the border they saw the fresh tracks of Colby’s pony and Diana’s. It was evident that they had stopped here for a considerable time, which, in truth, they had, so positive was Colby that he had thrown their pursuers off the track, leading them into a gun fight with a superior force that might reasonably have been expected to have accounted for them to the last man.

Five minutes was all the rest that the pursuers allowed their horses. Once again they were in the saddle. “Lookee yender!” exclaimed Texas Pete, pointing toward the south. “Ef it ain’t rainin’ there I’m a siwash.”

“It’s about a month too early for the rains,” said Bull, “but it shore is rainin’-rainin’ like hell. Look at thet lightnin’. Say, if they ain’t crossed Salee’s Flats yet they won’t never git acrost, not while thet rain lasts.”

“‘N’ if they has crossed we won’t never catch ‘em,” said Shorty.

“I’ll catch ‘em ef I hev to ride plumb to hell an’ it takes me a hundred years,” said Bull.

The rain struck Colby and Diana at the northern edge of the Flats. It came in driving sheets and sometimes in solid masses that almost crushed them. It came with deafening reverberations of Titantic thunder and vivid, almost terrifying, displays of lightning. It was bad where they were, but Colby knew from experience of the country that in the low hills at the upper end of the Flats it was infinitely worse-that there had been a cloudburst. He put spurs to his horse and dragging Diana’s into a gallop urged them both to greater speed, knowing that if he did not cross the wash in the center of the Flats within a few minutes he might not cross it again for days. When they reached it three feet of turbid water tumbled madly down the narrow bed between the precipitous clay walls. The man found a steep path that stock had made for crossing when the bed of the wash was dry and urged his horse downward. The force of the current almost swept the animal from its feet, but with wide-spread legs it stemmed the torrent, while Colby, taking a few turns of the lead rope around his horn, dragged Diana’s pony through in safety after him. At the top of the bank the man turned and looked toward the north and then down at the rising flood.

“If this rain holds out they won’t nothin’ more cross here fer a spell,” he said, smiling. “In ten minutes she’ll be plumb full. We kin take it easier now.”

He started off again, but now at a walk, for he knew that there was no longer need for haste, if there had been before, which he had doubted. The horses, cooled and refreshed by the rain, would have been equal to a spurt now, but none was necessary, and so they came after a mile to the dim outlines of an adobe house showing through the driving downpour, directly ahead. Colby rode close to the door, and leaning from his saddle, pounded upon it. There was no reply.

“I reckon we’ll stop here a while,” he said, dismounting.

He opened the door and looked in. The place was deserted. In rear of it was an open shed for stock and to this they rode. Colby helped Diana from her horse, removed the saddles and bridles from the animals and tied them beneath the shed, then he led the girl to the house, her arms still bound by the reata. There was no chance that she could escape now; so the man removed her bonds.

“We’ll rest here a few hours an’ give the horses a chance, then we’ll hit the trail. We gotta find a place where we kin feed, my belly’s wrapped around my back-bone. Let’s be friends, Di. You might as well make the best of it. You cain’t blame a feller fer lovin’ you, an’ I ain’t so bad-you might a-done a lot worse.” He came toward her and raised his hand as though to place it on her arm.

“Don’t touch me!” She drew back with an appreciable shudder or revulsion.

He laughed. “You’ll feel better after a while,” he said. “We’re both too dog tired to be very good company. I’m goin’ to get in a little sleep. You’d better do the same; but I’ll have to tie you up again unless you’ll promise not to try to escape.”

She made no reply. “All right,” he said, “ef you’d rather be tied.” He came then and tied her hands behind her. Keeping one end of the rope in his own hand he lay down upon the dirt floor and was soon asleep. Diana sat with her back against the wall listening to the rain beating upon the roof and driving against the walls. The roof leaked badly in several places and the water that came through formed puddles on the floor which joined together into a little rivulet that wound to the doorway and disappeared beneath the door.

How hopeless! Diana stifled a sob. She was tired and hungry and weak from exhaustion. The frightful rain had cut off the frail vestige of a chance of rescue that there had been before. By now no man or beast could cross Salee’s Flats. She knew one man who would try had he known of her predicament, but how was he to know of it-a hunted fugitive hiding in the mountains far to the north.

Realizing the necessity for haste if they were to cross the Flats before the wash became an impassable torrent, the three pursuers drove their tired horses onward at the top of their diminished speed. The race became at once a test for the survival of the fittest, and Blazes forged steadily farther and farther, ahead of the ponies. Long before Bull reached the Flats the rain was upon him, refreshing both horse and man, and Blazes, as though imbued with new life, increased the distance between himself and the two ponies now far behind. The driving rain was rapidly obliterating the trail that the man followed, yet he managed to cling to it to the very brink of the wash-to the very point where Colby and Diana had crossed, and there Bull drew rein to look down, scowling, upon a seething barrier of yellow water. Twenty feet wide it was and ten feet deep, swirling and boiling like a cauldron of hell. He eyed the greasy, muddy footing of the bank. Had it been firm and dry he had put Blazes to it for a jump, but he knew that it could not be done, nor could he swim the horse. Even could the animal have made the crossing it could not have clambered out upon the top of that perpendicular, constantly caving wall, with the mighty current always dragging at it. But Bull was not hopeless-he was merely devising ways and means. Not an instant had he considered the possibility of giving up the. pursuit, or even of delaying it by waiting for the waters to recede. Taking his rope in hand he dismounted and stepped close to the brink of the torrent, upon both sides of which grew numerous clumps of grease-wood. He seemed already to have formed a plan, for he drew one of his six-guns and hurled it across the wash. He followed it with the second gun and then with his heavy belt of cartridges. Then came his boots, one by one.

Shaking down the honda he swung a noose at the end of his rope, which, opening up, described a circle that seemed to revolve about his head at an angle of forty-five degrees with the ground, like a rakish halo just for an instant, and then it rose and sailed gracefully across the new-born river to drop around a clump of grease-wood upon the opposite bank.

“Come here!” said Bull to Blazes, and the horse stepped-to his side, close to the water’s edge. “Stand!” commanded Bull, knowing that Blazes would stand where he was for hours, if necessary, until his master gave a new order.

Bull drew in his rope until it became taut and then he dragged heavily upon the grease-wood across the channel. It held despite his most strenuous efforts. He tied the loose end about his waist, stepped to the edge of the water and leaped in.

Hal Colby awoke and looked about him. His eyes fell upon the girl sitting with her back against the wall across the room.

“Feelin’ better?” he asked. “I am. Nothin’ like sleep, onless it be grub.”

She did not reply. He rose to his feet and approached her. “You’re shore a sullen little devil, but I’ll take that