Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox

hold on a minute longer. Astonishing how a man clung to life. He sent an order down to his arms, but they wouldn't obey, and he knew that for him the fight was over. More he couldn't do. The gang was beating around the brush, and there was somebody still nearer calling his name in a thin and frightened voice.

      "Tom—where are you?"

      Lorena. Out of all this blackness she came. He framed her name in his throat with a painful care. One more effort—that was all, just one more effort.

      "Where are you—where are you?"

      The energy to speak that name was gone. And then in dead despair be gave up. She was forever lost to him. She was alone and he would never be able to help her. How a man missed the sun once it was gone. Nothing but blackness down this new trail, nothing but blackness...

      Lorena left the restaurant a moment after Tom Gillette started away from the town. She knew he was somewhere along the trail, and thus, when the burst of shots rocketed down the slope, she instantly understood what was happening up there in the shadows. She heard San Saba's voice lashing into the night, she heard him call the Gillette name. At that she dropped her basket and broke into a run. A horse galloped toward her, more shots woke the echoes; she sprang out of the trail to let the horse go by, and she heard Gillette fall to the ground directly to the rear. She wasn't exactly sure that it was Gillette lying there until the renegades started in pursuit. Then she ran back and began to call, muffling her voice.

      There was no answer. She marked the spot in her mind and weaved back and forth in a narrowing circle repeating his name over and over again, while the very weight of the night smothered her and her heart pounded unbearably. She found him; found him all in a huddle on the ground just as the beams of a lantern shot along the trail. The renegades were at a halt, parleying among themselves.

      "Go on—go on, Hazel. His hoss is halfway to town by how."

      "Yeah, but he fell offen the brute. We got him clean. He's back there, rolled in the brush."

      "I brought this lantern so's I'd look in his face and see him dead," droned San Saba. "Now, we're goin' to find the man and plant the last bullet in his neck."

      "Judas, but I never saw a fella as wanted another man so bad as you. Well, let's beat around, then."

      "Hustle it. Might be a posse collectin'."

      Hazel's laugh exploded and echoed up to the tree-tops. "Nobody's goin' to be in any hurry to investigate a burst of shots. Not when they know Hazel's night-hawkin'."

      All this came to the girl on successive waves of sound, rising and falling, sometimes plain, sometimes only a murmur. She was on her knees, her hands running across Gillette's body, touching his heart, passing over his face. And still again she repeated his name while the lantern dipped in and out of the trees, its outflung beams striking a little nearer at each swing. They would find her in a little while. In despair she caught his shoulders and shook him. The warm blood trickled across her palm, and it took all the courage she owned to suppress the cry that caught in her throat. His horse had stopped the moment the saddle emptied and now waited on the trail; if she could only get him into the saddle once more...

      He was too heavy to lift. Hazel's gang swept down the incline at a faster pace, the rays of the lantern touched the ground a scant ten yards off.

      "He ain't far away, bet yore hat. Shucks, man, what's the itch? I know we got him."

      "I'll look in his dam' face befo' I believe it," droned San Saba. "I got to see him dead with my own eyes. Wait a bit."

      The lantern bobbed; they smashed through the brush, back- tracking. Lorena's hand dropped to Gillette's heart. He still lived, and that was all.

      "Oh, dear God, why can't you help me? Why can't you?"

      She made a swift calculation. It was only a matter of yards to the creek's edge. Once she got him down there she could hide him in one of the innumerable prospectors' pits and cover him with a loose layer of gravel. She could hide until they passed. But the horse was on the trail and they would see it. After that they'd never leave until they had thoroughly covered the adjacent ground. And then it would be too late; Tom would be dead. Nevertheless, she got her arms about his chest and lifted him; dragged him across the earth five yards before stopping. He was far heavier than she supposed. She could go no farther.

      They were back from the side hunt. Forward swung the lantern, forward came the trampling boots. Lorena was on her knees again, both hands stretched across his body. She thought of fighting back, but there was no gun in his holster and her own was in the basket she had dropped on the trail. Thus she crouched, a hand seeming to squeeze her heart. San Saba's voice rose and fell in a round, savage phrase. "Yo' hear me, Hazel. I'll put my heel in his dam' face an' grind the sight outen him! It's the last Gillette. I'm tromplin' the breed out..."

      The veering beams almost touched her. Lorena shifted, and one exploring hand touched and closed about a rock. Closed about it so tightly that its jagged corners bit into her palm. She rose, stepped to the trail and threw the rock as she would have launched a lariat. It went high, carried beyond them and struck a tree. The lantern twisted and dropped; instantly it was smashed and the light extinguished by a grinding boot heel.

      "Behind!"

      "Yo' brash fool, what about a light now?"

      "He's playin' possum behind. Stretch back there!"

      The horse was a few yards removed. Lorena went toward him cautiously. She caught the reins, she swung to the saddle and in a flash she wheeled away from the trail and deeper into the trees. The noise betrayed her, as she wished it to do. San Saba was volleying words; words that were drowned by a double explosion. The bullets were low; she heard them racing toward their own horses.

      All this was blind riding to her, she never had gone far from the trail or very deep into these woods; but she pushed the horse as fast as it would go, marking the town lights now and then as they appeared between the pines. These lights sank as she kept her course upward. It took time for the renegades to get a-saddle and in pursuit, and when she heard them smashing along she made a quick foray at right angles to her course, brought up by the shelter of a thicket she felt against her stirrup, and waited. They swept past her, near enough at one moment to have heard her breathing. Then they were tangled in the pockets and the underbrush of the higher ground; she waited a moment before turning back. The sound of their own progress covered hers. And they wouldn't return—not for a little while.

      The horse took her back to the trail, but the exact location of Gillette was another matter, and she felt, for a little while absolutely helpless. Then the animal's shoes crunched against the glass of the shattered lantern and instantly she was on the ground, zigzagging through the brush. The renegades were out of hearing, but a traveller came along the trail from town, his approach marked by a belled burro. That meant a prospector going into the hills; directly after hearing this new sound in the night her foot touched Gillette's body. She dropped.

      "Tom—oh, my dear! I can't lift you, I can't let you stay here!"

      There was a smallness to his breathing that frightened her. The belled burro neared her covert, and she rose and stepped into the trail. There was no other alternative. This man she would have to use.

      "Who are you?"

      The bell stopped jingling; a gruff voice answered. "Do'ee hear now? Ab's cat, is it a woman in this tarnal black night?"

      "Who are you?"

      "Ma'm, what mought be the difference? Gabe's my handle. Old Gabe. Ask ary old-timer in the Hills about me."

      "You've got to help. No questions to be asked, understand? And you must never say a word to anyone. Will you do it?"

      "Rags an' bottles. Mystication's what it sounds like. But if it's a lady I'll be singed if I won't."

      "Come behind me. There's a man dying here in the brush."

      "Better die in the brush than die in a bed," muttered the prospector. He skirted her and stooped down to run a hand across Gillette. "Dyin' be about the proper term for the sitooation."

      "You've