Moody's reply was a quiet but vigorous slap on his own thigh. 'Got any spiders yet?' he inquired.
'Gawd, no. Was that?'
'Yeah, tarantula--on'y a little 'un, though,' Moody lied, and chortled as he heard his friend's feet fidgeting; he well knew Flatty's antipathy for that poisonous pest. 'If yu feel a ticklin' shall I come an' pat yu?' he went on solicitously.
'No, I'd sooner be bit,' was the unthankful retort. 'Ain't that blasted day ever comin'?'
'She shore is,' Moody said.
Behind the Butte a pale grey glow was spreading over the sky, rimming the surrounding ridges with silver, but the valley was still a sea of ink. Then came a shout from the plateau, shattering the silence, and the bunkhouse came to life. Lights appeared, a door gaped, and dark figures tumbled out in answer to the call of their leader. The men in ambush watched in perplexity; they had strict orders to wait for the signal. Chris Purdie swore; he did not know what to do.
'I'm feared Jim has slipped up,' he said gruffly. 'Can't we do nothin', Bill?'
'Stay put,' the little man advised, though it was against the grain. 'If he wants us he'll let us know.'
They could not see what was happening on the plateau, but it had set the Circle B humming like a hornets' nest. Then, above the shouts and curses, once--twice--the eagerly-awaited signal rang out.
'Let 'em have it, boys, but keep under cover,' Purdie cried.
From a dozen points along the slope vicious spits of flame stahbed the gloom, and before that unexpected hail of lead the Circle B riders fled for shelter. One of them, racing for the ranch-house, stopped suddenly, and then toppled over.
'Tally one for the C P,' Moody called out exultingly. 'See that, Flatty? I got him, an' he was a-runnin' too.'
'On'y proves what I said,' Flatty retorted. 'If he'd stood still . . .'
'Aw, go to blazes, an' don't forget this yer catclaw ain't bullet-proof, or yu will,' the marksman warned, peering out cautiously in the hope of a second success.
But the Circle B men had all gone to ground and were lying close. That first volley had told them they had a job of work to do, and they meant to put it over. Unable to see the enemy, they fired at the flashes, and it soon became evident that Burdette's followers knew how to use a rifle. The growing light would give them a greater advantage, for the cover of the attacking force was woefully thin, and to cross the open plateau to rush the ranch- house would be little less than suicide. Purdie recognized this, but, satisfied that his girl was no longer a prisoner he was determined to give the abductors a lesson they would not forget. After the first furious fusillade, the firing on both sides slackened and became a matter of marksmanship. A movement in the scrub or a shadow near one of the shattered windows of the building instantly brought the questing lead. Moody, furtively shifting a cramped limb, swore in sudden agony as a bullet zipped past.
'Whatsa matter?' asked his companion, from the other side of the bush. 'Yu hit?' Getting no reply, he added anxiously, 'Ain't dead, are yu? Can't yu say somethin'?'
Moody could and did; he said a great deal, quickly and emphatically, his topics comprising bloody-minded bandits, catclaw bushes as cover, and jackass cow-punchers who selected them as such. Incidentally, Flatty gathered that the bullet had driven sundry thorns into his friend's cheek. He listened spellbound until, from sheer lack of breath, the speaker paused.
'Sounds like yu was a bit peeved,' he said, and when the storm of words began again, 'Awright, I heard yu the first time. Where did that jasper fire from? Let's argue with him.'
'End upstairs window to the left,' Moody growled, whereupon the pair of them directed an unceasing stream of lead at the window. The man crouching behind it had his hat snatched from his head, his shoulder perforated, and when he poked his rifle out to reply to this scandalous onslaught, the weapon was jerked from his tingling fingers, a ruined, useless thing. Cursing, he went in search of a bandage and a safer position.
'Guess if we ain't got him he's discouraged a whole lot,' Flatty chuckled.
Moody did not reply. He was extracting further thorns from his epidermis, and the painful process moved him to speech again--vitriolic speech.
SUDDEN'S first conscious thought was that someone was banging his head on the floor and causing a cracking kind of explosion each time. Then, as the mist cleared from his brain, he recognized that though his head throbbed with pain, he was alone, and the noise came from without. He understood--the cleaning up of the Circle B was in progress. He tried to get up, but his bonds would not permit this; he could only lie and wait. So far as he could remember, he was in the room from which he had rescued Nan Purdie. He wondered if the pair had got away?
'Guess they made it, or Purdie would 'a' been forced to let up,' he reasoned. 'Why didn't Burdette bump me off at once? Aims to use me to bargain with, if things go against him, mebbe.'
For some time he lay there, listening to the intermittent crash of rifle-fire. He did not know the hour, but it was almost full daylight, and the fight must have been on for some time. Presently his quick ear caught the sound of a stealthy step outside the door. Were they coming to finish him off?
'Massa Luce, yo dah?' asked a low, quavering voice.
A woman--it could only be Mandy, the black cook; Sudden had heard the boy speak of her. A strange voice would frighten her away; Sudden groaned. His ruse succeeded, a key turned in the lock, and the Negress entered; she had an open clasp-knife in her hand. At the sight of the bound figure she started back in alarm.
'Yo don't be Massa Luce,' she said.
'I'm his friend--I came here to help him an' got catched myself,' the puncher explained. 'Yu must be Mandy; Luce has told me of yu; I reckon he would like for yu to cut me loose.'
She was shaking with fear, but she stooped and hacked through the thongs on wrists and ankles. Sudden hoisted himself to his feet, weak and tottery, one hand feeling gingerly at the back of his head, which throbbed incessantly. He found a noble bump, but no blood.
'So it ain't really fallin' apart,' he said, and grinned. 'We gotta get away from here plenty quick.'
'Yassuh, dat King neah kill me for dis,' Mandy said, her eyes big with terror.
'I'm figurin' he's got his hands middlin' full just now,' the foreman assured her.
Noiselessly they stole down the stairs. The frequent crack of a rifle and the thud of striking lead told that the battle was not yet over. As they passed the door of the living-room a choking cry and a curse announced that a bullet had found a billet. A voice called a hoarse question.
'Solly's got his--plumb through the throat,' came the reply. 'The damn fool would take a risk--I done told him them hombres could shoot.'
They found the back door unguarded--with the steep Butte behind him, King had no fear of heing outflanked--darted across the cleared space and plunged into the welcome shelter of the trees. For a long ten minutes, Sudden led the way, twisting and turning in the densest of the scrub, and then he paused.
'Reckon yo're safe now, Mandy,' he said. 'Wait here till the firin' stops an' then come in; we'll take care o' yu.
'Yassuh, I suah will do jus' dat,' she replied, and with the fatalistic resignation of her race, sat down to await whatever the gods might send.
Sudden headed for the scene of the conflict. Around him birds were chirping, the slanting rays of the early suntrickled through the trees, a tiny rivulet bubbled with mirth as he stepped across it, and his lips set in a wry smile as he reflected that only a few hundred yards away men were striving to slay their kind. Far up in the sky a great hawk swept in a wide circle.
'Another killer,' he mused. 'But he's gotta live. Well, so've we, an' if Burdette's sort ... Shucks! Mebbe it's hard to justify, but it's gotta be did.'
Which sage conclusion brought him to a little rise from whence he could see the ranch-house verandah. Even as he looked, a stick with a soiled white rag tied to it was thrust from a shattered window, and a voice called out.
'Hey, Purdie, I got somethin' to say. Yu willin' to listen?'
'Speak yore piece,' came the rancher's reply.
Sim Burdette stepped into view. He carried no gun, and there was much of his elder brother's jaunty
