The Collected Western Classics & Adventures Novels. William MacLeod Raine

climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a wash and disappeared.

      What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no fear.

      Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her.

      A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller.

      "You," she cried.

      "Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.

      His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.

      "So you are a—rustler," she told him scornfully.

      "I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter irony.

      She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his shirt sleeve.

      "You are wounded."

      "Am I?"

      "Aren't you?"

      "Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly.

      "Badly?"

      "I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the good luck to meet up with you."

      He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter.

      "Can you ride?" she demanded.

      "I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying to for twenty years," he drawled.

      Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?"

      "Yes, ma'am."

      She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile still flickering on his face.

      "Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know.

      "I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an anxious backward glance.

      Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted they sat facing each other.

      "Let me see your arm," she ordered.

      Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.

      "This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."

      "Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.

      Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked pretty bad.

      "A plumb scratch," he explained.

      She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.

      "Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."

      "It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.

      There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. "Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."

      "Exactly."

      He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?"

      "I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two."

      "Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually.

      "I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told him icily.

      His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"

      "I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills alone. That is all."

      "Jim Yeager is your friend?"

      "Yes."

      "And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"

      "He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.

      "Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."

      He checked his pony and bowed.

      "Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.

      "Up Bear Creek."

      "It's twenty miles. You can't do it."

      "Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.

      "You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"

      He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.

      "I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her pride.

      "Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he drawled.

      At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I like you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel friendly when I hate you?"

      "Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came back with his easy smile.

      "You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I can't let you go alone."

      "You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss Sanderson."

      With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, both at him and at herself.

      "Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it yet," he said innocently.

      "I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one that will take charge of you," she choked.

      "It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged,