The Rider of Golden Bar. William Patterson White

or I shoot!"

      She giggled hysterically. How could she halt when she had not yet started? She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand. He was a tall mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames, threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her lungs to "Go! Go! Go!"

      He went. He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades. Hazel slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins. He hardly needed any encouragement. Her initial cry had been more than enough.

      The man in the brush stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath. It had at last been borne in upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake. Instead of shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace. There were other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his enemy.

      But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over. It was, not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman. He might just as well have shot Hazel—better, in fact. She had undoubtedly recognized him. Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.

      "I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered. "That'll put a crimp in her."

      He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger. Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel. Luckily she was not stunned and she rolled clear. She scrambled to her feet and set off up the trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.

      "Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight. "I'd oughta drop her! She's askin' for it, the hussy!"

      His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull. Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on safety. The drink was dying out in him. Against his will he rendered the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration. "Whatsa use? She's got too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."

      On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly scratching the palms of her hands. But she scrambled to her feet and went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.

      Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low croak.

      Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel Walton. But the check was momentary. He clapped home the spurs and hustled his horse into a gallop. He and Hazel came together literally, forty yards below the crest. The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.

      "Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy, dismounting in haste.

      He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the ground. She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed away her varied emotions.

      "There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess of her midnight hair. "It's all right. You're all right. You're all right. Nothing to worry about—not a-tall. You're safe. Don't cry. Tell me what's bothering you?"

      And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.

      It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning. They who can construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear explanation.

      When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving, which order was superfluous. She did not want to get up again—ever.

      Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise. Arrived at the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle at trail. Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.

      He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape immediately in front of him. At first he saw nothing—then two hundred yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly thick shadow. He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.

      The shadow of the sumac became thin. A dark objected flitted from it to another bush. The dark object was a man's head. It was hatless. Billy smiled and decided to wait. He understood that he was dealing with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter. He lay motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.

      Billy smiled pityingly. It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had never been on a man hunt before. If he had he would have been more careful.

      "Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a child."

      It was destined to be even more like taking candy from a child.

      Four times before the bold Jack reached the crest of the hill he offered Billy a target he couldn't miss. And each time the latter refrained from shooting. Somehow he was finding it difficult to shoot an unconscious mark. If Jack had been shooting at him or had even been aware of his presence, it would have been different. But to shoot him now was too much like cold-blooded murder. There was nothing of the bushwhacker in the Wingo make-up.

      Suddenly at the top of the rise, Jack Murray ducked completely out of sight.

      "Must have seen the horse," thought Billy, and looked over his shoulder. No, it was not the horse. Billy was on higher ground than was Jack and he could not see even the tips of his mount's ears.

      "It can't be my hat he sees," Billy told himself.

      Evidently it was the hat, for while Billy's eyes were on the hat, a rifle cracked where Jack Murray lay hidden and the hat jumped and settled.

      "Good thing my head ain't inside," said the wholly delighted Billy, his eyes riveted on the smoke shredding away above the bushes on the right front. "I wonder if he thinks he got me."

      It was evident that Jack Murray was wondering too. For the crown of a hat appeared with Jack-in-the-box unexpectedness at the right side of the bush below the smoke. Experience told Billy that a stick was within the crown of the hat which moved so temptingly to and fro.

      Three or four minutes later, Jack Murray's hat disappeared and the rifle again spoke.

      "Another hole in my hat," Billy muttered resignedly and cuddled his rifle stock against his cheek. "He'll wave his hat again, and then he'll be about ready to go see if the deer is venison."

      Even as he foretold, the hat appeared and was moved to and fro, and raised and lowered, in order to draw fire. Then, peace continuing to brood over the countryside, the hat was crammed on the owner's head and the owner, on hands and knees, headed through the brush toward Billy's hat.

      Billy was of the opinion that Jack Murray's course would bring him within ten feet. He was right. Jack Murray passed so close that Billy could have reached forth his rifle and touched him with the muzzle. Instead he waited till Jack's back was fairly toward him before he said, "Hands up!"

      Jack Murray possessed all the wisdom of his kind. He dropped his rifle and tossed up his hands.

      "Stand up. No need to turn around," resumed Billy, Riley Tyler's six-shooter trained on the small of Jack's back. "Lower your left hand slowly and work your belt down. You wear it loose. It'll drop easy. And while you're doing it, if you feel like gamblin' with me, remember that this is Riley's gun and I ain't used to it, and I might have to shoot you three or four times instead of only