broke away and went charging southward.
Evart made a slight clucking sound, lowered his Colt, and made a motion for Rufe to follow him in ab-solute silence. They left their animals hidden in un-derbrush and zigzagged through thorny brush until old Hartman sank to one knee, head cocked, and motioned for Rufe to slip in beside him.
Up ahead, on their right, they could hear men mumbling. Rufe detected Fenwick’s voice again, and shook his head. The last time he’d seen Fenwick the cowboy had been chained in Elisabeth Cane’s barn.
Finally something occurred which helped explain what was happening on ahead through the under-brush. An angry voice, made sharp by someone’s incensed condition, said: “What’n hell you’d let him get away for? He’ll fetch up his partner and a lousy posse!”
Rufe and Hartman exchanged a look, then Hart-man dropped low as another, less furious voice said: “Hurry up with the horses so’s we can get out of here. He can’t do anything by himself, anyway, and by the time he gets back….” The rest of this remark was lost as the speaker either turned his back in the direction of the two listening men, or just let his words trail off.
Someone back where Rufe and Hartman had left their horses made a mountain quail call. It was realistic enough, except that Rufe knew that call. He tapped Hartman’s shoulder, jerked his head, and began withdrawing back in that direction.
Jud was down there, calmly smoking a cigarette, when Rufe, leading the way, came around a tall, thorny stand of underbrush. Jud gazed over, and shook his head dolorously. “What took you so damned long?” he querulously asked.
Rufe introduced Evart Hartman, and Jud nodded, still looking irritable. When Rufe said—“What’s going on up there?”—Jud answered almost laconically.
“I almost had Chase, when the whole blasted ball of wax gave way. He rode up onto them.”
Hartman interrupted. “Rode up onto who?”
“Elisabeth bringing Fenwick and the other one with her down to town to the jailhouse.” Jud shrugged. “Just as well she never made it, eh? Any-way, Chase threw down on her. I saw that much, but, before I could get any closer, Chase freed Fen-wick, gave him her pistol, and handed her carbine to the other feller…and, hell, I lost out.”
Rufe was intrigued. “Where’s Elisabeth now?”
“Up there,” replied Jud, dropping his smoke to stamp it out. “They got her for their hostage. That’s what I meant when I said the whole damned thing come unraveled.” He glanced at Hartman. “Any more fellers on their way?”
The old cowman shook his head. “No. But there’s the three of us…and if all they got is three guns….”
Jud studied the old cowman with a sour look, then turned toward Rufe. “Maybe we can hold them down while someone rides back for more men.” He pointed. “They can’t use the trail up the slope.” His meaning was clear; that trail going up to the mesa was fully exposed.
Hartman did not appear very impressed. As he said, there were a dozen other routes away from this particular spot. Jud nodded. “Then it’s up to us to hold’em here, isn’t it?”
They ventured again back through the underbrush until they were close enough to hear men working with livestock. Shortly now Arlen Chase and his riding crew would attempt to escape, and Jud, still showing monumental disgust, gestured. “If you fellers will slip around yonder, one to the west, one to the east, I’ll drive in a couple of bullets from down here. That ought Tomake them defensive.” He looked at Rufe. “Just remember, I’m down here, if you get to throwing lead.”
If there was a better way, they did not see it right then, and because they did not seem to have very much time to accomplish their purpose before Chase and his riders made their break for it, Rufe turned away, as did Evart Hartman, leaving Jud standing morosely behind the big thorn-pin tree.
Rufe’s course was not difficult. All he had to do was avoid contact with the underbrush, and watch where he stepped in order to avoid dry twigs under-foot. He could hear an occasional voice up ahead, where Chase and his men were getting organized, but he did not pay much attention until he was between them and the uphill road leading back atop Cane’s Mesa. Then he began skulking in closer, hoping for a view of the secreted men with Arlen Chase. What he specifically wished to determine was where Elisabeth was. If there was to be a battle, he did not want her endangered if there was any way to avoid it.
Of course, there was no way to avoid it. When he finally caught a glimpse of movement through the lower limbs of underbrush, what he saw was three horses, saddled and being held by someone who he could not distinctly make out at all.
He shoved his Colt forward, wriggled in as close as he could at the base of a particularly hardy stand of buckbrush, allowed a full minute to pass, during which he thought Jud and the old cowman would be in place, then he sang out.
“Chase! Fenwick! We’re on all sides of you!”
He had more to say, but a nervous trigger finger up through the brush fired a gun in the direction of Rufe’s voice, and the bullet made a tearing sound, clearly audible, but two feet higher than where Rufe was lying.
Rufe held his fire, intending to sing out again. From off to the east, far out, Evart Hartman fired; at least that shot came from the area where Rufe was certain Hartman had gone, but otherwise there was no way for Rufe to be sure who had fired.
This second gunshot, though, stirred up a hor-net’s nest. Two pistols and a Winchester cut loose in the same direction as Hartman had fired from. Rufe pushed his six-gun ahead, aimed as best he could at the ground beneath where those three saddled horses were being held, and tugged off a shot.
The noise was bad enough, but when that slug tore into the gravelly hardpan, causing an eruption of flinty soil and sharp little bits of stone, which flew upwards, striking the nearest horse under the belly, the animal gave a tremendous bound into the air, and snorted like a wild stallion.
A man swore as the other two held horses also violently reacted, and another man yelled for the horse holder to hang on.
Rufe fired again in the same way, his bullet exploding hardpan upward beneath those terrified horses, and this time two furiously swearing men fired back as they rushed over to help the horse holder.
Both those last two bullets also went high above where Rufe was lying. Nevertheless, it would only be a matter of moments before Chase’s riders figured out that Rufe was belly down out there. They would then lower their gun barrels, but right at this moment everyone through the brush was desperately seeking to control the frightened horses.
Rufe had no intention of allowing the men to get their animals under control, if he could help it. As long as they were fully occupied with their only means of escape, he was relatively safe from their wrath.
He wriggled away from his big bush and crept still closer. While he was crawling, Jud fired from southward, but high. So high, in fact, that the bullet clipped a dozen small branches from the tops of the bushes. Rufe saw this happen, saw the underbrush rip and tear as Jud’s slug bore through it.
It occurred to him that Jud was also thinking of Elisabeth’s safety, when he fired that high.
Rufe found another massive old bush, but when he pushed aside low branches to get into the protection of the trunk at ground level, he met an agitated rattlesnake, coiled in the shade to avoid the full day’s heat. Rufe began carefully reversing himself, began to crawl backward as surely as, moments before, he had crawled forward.
Evidently the snake was as willing to have Rufe do that as Rufe was because he neither rattled nor raised his flat, ugly-snouted head.
Hartman fired again, and this time someone through the underbrush swore at the old cowman, then ripped off two very fast pistol shots.
Jud fired again, still high, and Rufe added another gunshot. This time, the men up ahead did not return Rufe’s fire, and only one man let fly in Jud’s direction, and he fired too far to the east to endanger Jud.
For a couple of minutes there was absolute silence. Evart Hartman, who had not said a word until now, called forth in a tone of voice that was almost too calm.
“Hey, you fellers! So far, you’re not in any real bad trouble. At least, so far you ain’t done anything folk-s’ll want to hang you for. But you keep this up, and maybe hit someone, and you’re going to end up out back of the livery barn at the end of a rope. You sure it’s worth it?”
The silence continued after Hartman had called out. Rufe was hopeful. The long silence encouraged him in
