slipped an arm around her, she seemed content to let it remain.
The marshal, also, was having a testing time. His experiment of taking a short cut over the hump of the hill was sound enough, but not easy of accomplishment. Nevertheless, he hurried, for soon after he had left Dave, two reports, one faint and the second a little louder, had reached him, and he was troubled.
He stumbled on down the incline and presently saw that his deduction had been correct--the ledge lay before him. Concealed behind a bushy shrub, he waited. The moments slid by, and he was beginning to fear that he was too late after all when, out of the silence, came the crunch of hasty feet. Sudden stood up, his rifle directed at the unsuspecting traveller.
'Reach for it, Mullins,' he ordered.
The fugitive stopped as though struck by a bullet, gazed in amazed consternation, and slowly raised his hands. How in the Devil's name the marshal had contrived to be there he could not guess, but with the hate in his heart was now a sickening dread.
'Where's Mrs. Gray?' Sudden asked sharply.
'Left her back on the trail--she was hamperin' me,' Jake said sullenly. 'I was on'y takin' her from Sark.'
'yeah, dawg robbin' dawg,' was the caustic retort. 'We'll go find her. If I hadn't promised to hang yu, I'd use a ca'tridge right now. March, an' don't do nothin' to make me change my mind.' Mullins marched, his captor close at his heels. His situation was critical, as well he knew. He tried to arrange his jumbled thoughts and hit upon a loop- hole, only to return to the one appalling fact--he was walking to his death.
As they drew nearer to the spot where he had so inhumanly sacrificed the Widow, his haggard face hardened into a despairing resolve to risk all on one last throw--a gamble to save the life already forfeit. But the man behind must not suspect.
Head down, shoulders drooping despondently, he slouched wearily along until they came to where the path doubled in width for a few yards, giving him space to carry out his design, and, with a grunt of pain, clasped his hands to his middle, and nearly fell. Then, as his guard stepped closer to investigate, he straightened, knocked aside the muzzle of the rifle with one hand, snatched his knife from behind his belt with the other, and aimed a lightning stab at Sud-den's breast. Unexpectedly as was the attack, it did not take the marshal entirely unawares. Flinging up the rifle, he parried the knife-stroke with such force that both weapons left their owners' grasp, and before he could draw one of his guns, Jake's long arms were pinioning his own.
Locked in a close embrace, the men struggled for mastery. Powerfully-built, tough as hickory, each knew that he was fighting for his life. Mullins, infuriated by the fact that he had again failed to outwit the man who so often baulked him, seemed to be imbued with the strength of a madman.
Slipping, slithering, sometimes almost on the dizzy brink of the chasm, they wrought on, now one, now the other, gaining some slight advantage. There was no sound save of hard-drawn breath and rasp of boots trying to keep a hold on the ground. In vain Sudden strove to free an arm, but the bandit clung like a limpet, forcing him to the edge of the trail. The man's physical power was phenomenal, and the marshal realized that unless he could break that hold the pair of them would perish. His heel turned on a loose stone, a braced knee gave, and he saw the unholy gleam of triumph in the ferocious, bloodshot eyes.
'You lose, Sudden,' Jake gasped. 'Go feed the buzzards, you bastard.' His exultation was premature. The marshal glimpsed the void just behind him and knew he was within seconds of death. With a supreme effort he thrust the other back, swinging round on to solid ground again. With a savage roar of disappointment, Jake--who now seemed careless of his own life--made another violent attempt to hurl both to destruction. He was within an ace of succeeding when the marshal spoke:
'Don't shoot, Dave.' Jake's head turned, and involuntarily the tension of his grip relaxed. In a flash, Sudden wrenched his right arm free and struck for the angle of the chin. Though travelling but a few inches, it was a crippling blow, driven home with every ounce of strength left in the striker's body. The bandit's eyes dulled, his arms dropped limply as he reeled drunkenly away to sprawl, face down, in the dust. The impact sent Sudden tottering to the cliff-side, where he leant, panting, and, for the moment, powerless.
'I'm beat--I give in,' the prostrate man grunted hoarsely.
Laboriously he got to his knees, and then, with amazing speed, sprang up and turned, the marshal's rifle--on which he had chanced to fall--in his grasp. He pulled the trigger, but Sudden dropped swiftly, one hand sweeping to his hip; the gun barked once, Jake spun round, a foot swung over nothing, and--silence.
Sudden lurched to the welcome shade of a bush and sat down, greedily gulping air into his depleted lungs.
'Never knowed breathin' was such a pleasure,' he told the world. 'I feel like I'd been in the path of a stampede.' There Dave and the girl found him when they arrived, having witnessed the final scene of the tragedy.
'Saw yu scrappin' an' we certainly hurried,' the young man explained, and with an apologetic look at the lady, 'Guess I swore some.'
'I thought it was a prayer,' Mary smiled.
'Mebbe it was--kind of,' Masters agreed with relief.
'Shore seemed yu'd take the big jump together, Jim.' The marshal's eyes creased. 'Yu saved me, Dave.'
'But I warn't here.'
'He thought yu were--I played trick for trick,' Sudden replied, and told of his ruse. 'It was him or me, but I'm sorry he went that way. What happened to yu?' His face hardened as he heard. 'Men can die too easy,' he said. 'Well, that's one rogue we're rid of, but there's a bigger--who used him--to deal with.'
Chapter XXI
THE sun was dipping westwards when they again neared the rustlers' retreat. The crackle of rifle-fire had ceased, but the acrid odour of burnt powder still permeated the air. They waited for a while, listening.
'Reckon the fight is finished, but we gotta make shore who's on top afore we go surgin' in--we might be too welcome,' the marshal decided. 'I'll scout around.' It did not take him long to reach the edge of the clearing, and he saw at once that the outlaws had been defeated; the men passing in and out of the bullet-scarred building belonged to the attacking force.
'Hi, Reddy,' he called.
The Bar O foreman's grimed, sweat-streaked features lit up when he saw who had hailed him. 'Jim, yo're a sight for sore eyes,' he cried. 'yu missed all the fun.' Sudden's smile was satiric. 'Yeah,' he replied. 'Where's Jesse Sark?'
'We found him upstairs. Someone had bent a six-gun over his cranium, but he's come alive agin, an' is he mad? He claims Mullins did it, an' carried off Mrs. Gray. Ned sez it's so, an' that yu an' Dave went after 'em.'
'We brought her back.'
'An' Jake?'
'He had a bed fall--three hundred feet, mebbe, on to rocks,' was how the marshal put it.
'Well, that saves soilin' a rope,' the foreman said harshly.
They passed through the battered doorway into the living-room to be greeted with a rousing cheer, and a storm of questions which both men refused to answer.
Downstairs the gathering had grown strangely quiet. Austere-faced men whispered to one another, their attention centred on the marshal, Nippert, and John Owen, who were conversing together. On a chair, his head clumsily bandaged, Sark sat, sullenly watching the proceedings, and at the other end of the room was a group of five men, their hands bound. Dave joined the three leaders, who asked about Mrs. Gray.
'She's asleep,' he informed, and jerked a thumb at the prisoners. 'What yu goin' to do with 'em?'
'They swing,' Owen said shortly.
'One of 'em don't,' Dave said. 'He saved my life.'
'He's a cattle-thief an' was fightin' agin us,' the rancher persisted.
'If it hadn't been for him, yu wouldn't be here,' Dave retorted.
The marshal settled the matter by loosing the rustler's wrists. 'This fella goes free, John. He was done with Mullins before the fandango started, an' on'y returned here to oblige me.' Before Owen could raise any further objection a diversion occurred. Sark, rising shakily to his feet, demanded to be told who was in charge.
'Speak yore piece--we're all listenin',' Nippert replied. 'I wanta know why some of my men have been shot,
