Straight west Ronicky Doone had sent Lou when he parted from Hugh Dawn. There was not a chance in ten that he would come on signs of the fugitive, if indeed the bandit had taken this way. It only remained to play the single chance bravely and strongly. So he laid a true course due west and let the mare do her gallant best. Then, when the sun was well up, and before and behind him the mountains were tossing in endless waves of rocky summits, he saw the two figures hurrying far before him over a crest two ranges away. At the very moment when the two looked back and saw him, he had sighted them, and, though at that distance he could not tell whether or not one was a man and one was a woman, he sent Lou like a red-bay streak down the mountainside.
But when he struck the opposite slope, unlike the blind eagerness of the outlaw, and even though he were groaning at the thought of a further delay, Ronicky drew down the willing mare to a slow trot. In this fashion he climbed the steep slope, even forcing Lou to come back to a steady walk when the trail rose sheer before him, and finally slipping from the saddle and trotting at the side of the beautiful creature.
She knew what this meant. When the master so favored her, to lighten her burden, it meant that he expected her, sooner or later, to give every ounce of her energy in his service. Well, let him make the call; she was prepared to answer. How different from the method of huge Jack Moon was this partnership of man and beast! As he trotted beside his struggling mare along that heartbreaking trail, Ronicky called out to her cheerily and patted her shining shoulder. When they reached the top of the heavy grade, he jumped into the saddle and was off like the wind.
Down the next mountainside they dipped and climbed the farther rise. Down they went again, and, reaching the farther summit, Ronicky stiffened in the saddle and cried out in joy.
Straight down below him lay the struggling figure of the prostrate gray, ruined forever. Farther still, in the hollow before the first rise, there was the glint of gold which had been thrown away. And over the first foothill— could he believe his eyes?— were the girl and Jack Moon, so close that he could identify the broad shoulders of the outlaw!
He took the shorter slope of the hill swiftly and broke on to the rolling surface of the foothills. Now, indeed, the mare could run, and Ronicky let her head go. He kept a rein just strong enough to steady her and keep her running straight, just firm enough to straighten her out in case of a stumble; and so they flashed over range after range of the softly molded hills and came again in sight of the fugitives.
They were riding on the last range of the hills, the girl sitting straight in the saddle with the red silk bandanna fluttering about her head. Jack Moon was flogging with his quirt and alternately spurring his own mount and the horse of the girl.
But he was lost. Even had he had the speed of the long-legged grays to help him, he could not have stood off the steady challenge of Lou. She came like the wind overtaking a ship. In five minutes she would range beside them. Now lack Moon knew that the girl had indeed ruined his effort. The delay had been fatal.
He made up his mind instantly, it seemed. Ronicky saw him cast loose the reins of the girl's horse and draw his revolver, and a terrible premonition darted through the brain of Ronicky. Was the heartless devil going to murder the woman he could not carry away with him?
But that was not the purpose of the outlaw.
"Swear by everything that's holy," he called to Jerry Dawn, "that you'll stand by with your hoss and not try to escape. Otherwise I'll kill the roan while I go back and attend to the fool that's coming up on us!"
There was no hesitation in the mind of the girl. She had seen one poor creature pistoled by this remorseless fiend of a man, and she could not face the thing again.
"I'll promise," she said. And she added fiercely: "But you'll never come back, Jack Moon!"
"The man ain't born," he declared, "that can stand me off in man-to-man fight."
"That," said the girl coldly, "is why you've run away like a whipped cur ever since you sighted Ronicky Doone. Bah!"
He blinked before her scorn, and then, through his teeth, he answered: "I played safe. I took no chances. But if you think I fear him or any man, watch me now! I'll come back riding Lou!"
She trembled at the thought, but she kept her head high and showed no sign of her fear.
"You dare not face him, Jack Moon," she said fiercely. "It's the beginning of the end. You've failed from the first, ever since Ronicky Doone crossed your path. I begin to see a hundred things. Somehow you've lied and blinded me with your lies. But now, in my heart, I know that Ronicky Doone was never untrue to my father. Jack Moon, heaven pity you, because as sure as honesty is stronger than crime, Ronicky Doone is going to kill you here on this hill. And all your tricks won't help you!"
There came the pursuer, drawing his mare back to a long and swinging canter as he saw that the outlaw no longer fled.
Moon knew that, whatever happened, he had already lost Jerry. "Stand by," he said. "Watch Ronicky Doone go down. And before I go, I'll tell you the truth. I've made my play, and I've lost; but I'll show you how little you've won. It wasn't a bluff that I told my boys to run back there in the hollow. I told them to rush the house and shoot to kill. And that's what they done. Doone got away— to be finished by me. But your father is dead back yonder in the hollow. Otherwise, wouldn't he be there with Ronicky? He's dead, and that's the end of his story. And now I'll finish Ronicky's."
He saw her lips part and her eyes widen with horror; then he shut out the picture by whirling his horse toward the oncoming rider.
Ronicky Doone made out no detail of that conversation, of course, but its general tenor was unmistakable. There sat the girl with her head bowed, and her face covered by her hands. Here was Jack Moon cantering toward him.
He stopped Lou on the crest of the hill and slipped from the saddle. Why should he imperil her life by putting her in the way of a chance bullet, so long as the enemy were coming on to fight the battle out bravely, man to man, in fair contest? The good mare followed him a pace or two, whinnying softly as though to ask why he had left the saddle, but he checked her advance with a sharp word, and she halted obediently, lifting her head and pricking her ears in curiosity.
Half a dozen paces from her, Ronicky paused and dropped his right hand on his hip, for the approaching rider had also slipped his revolver into the holster now. Though he did not follow Ronicky's humane example and dismount, he came on with one hand raised in the time-honored fashion of those who request a truce. Ronicky raised his own left hand as signal that the truce was granted, and the outlaw halted not more than half a dozen paces away, still in the saddle.
He waited, his head high, his clear eye sparkling with alertness. Not a movement of the sweat-brightened body of the horse, not a stir of the face of the outlaw, escaped him.
That face was set with unutterable grimness, though Jack Moon was striving to relax his expression and adopt one of careless self-confidence. He so far succeeded that he was able to smile down to Ronicky.
"I see," he said, "that you're so plumb tired of living that you pretty near wore out your hoss trying to get close to me."
"I see," answered Ronicky, with a smile to match that of the big fellow, "that you're so plumb fond of life that you wore out two horses trying to get away from me."
Unquestionably, if there were an advantage in that exchange of words, it lay on the side of Ronicky Doone. Since, in a manner, this was the first blow for him, Jack Moon set his teeth and strove to drive away the gloomy foreboding which flooded his mind. The words of the girl, too, rang through his memory. She had been strangely confident that her champion must win. That confidence had gleamed in her steady eyes, and the memory of that light now served to darken the vision of the outlaw. But he must rouse himself from this depression. In another moment his life would be staked upon his speed of hand, his lightning surety of eye, and he would be mated against a fighter such as he had never before in his life faced.
Accordingly, he stared straight into the eyes of Ronicky Doone. He had many a time made men cringe under the weight of his dominant will, but now the glance of Ronicky clashed against his own with equal force. This was to be no cheaply won victory!
But the youngster was smiling— no, he was sneering.
"Your nerve's going, Moon," he was saving calmly. "You'd better make your play now before it's all gone."
"Make my play now? Make my play first? I ain't sunk to that, kid!"
"You'll sink to that now," said Ronicky Doone. "Because you're wilting, Jack. The skunk in you is coming out to the surface. You're beat, and you know it. If you wait a minute more, you'll begin begging for life!"
The sweat poured out on the forehead of Jack Moon. For it was true! And he did know it. A great weakness was sweeping over him. The nervous, lean fingers of Ronicky Doone fascinated him. How could he expect to beat the speed of those fingers with his own great paws? If only the smaller man were within grip—
But he must act at once. Behind him the girl would look on. But the moment his hand moved for his gun there would be a convulsive downward flick of the hand now hanging so loosely, so carelessly at the hip of Ronicky. How cool the man was! What a devil of surety was in him!
The chestnut, impatient, pranced a little and turned sidewise toward Ronicky. Then the trick came to the outlaw. The horse would be his bulwark. Mighty must be the bullet that could plow through the body of a horse and reach him. Quick as thought he flung himself down along the chestnut, whipping out his revolver as he fell, and, encircling the neck of the horse with his left hand, he leveled the revolver and fired under the throat of his mount point-blank at Ronicky Doone.
But swift though his maneuver had been, it was slow compared with the lightning gun play of Ronicky. At the first twitch of the big man's body, the gun had been conjured into those lean fingers, and as the right shoulder and chest of the outlaw surged down on the other side of the horse— after all, it was an old Indian trick— the blaze of Doone's gun beat that of the man-killer's by a split part of a second. A small interval, indeed, very small— but just long enough to send the soul of a man winging from its body.
Jack Moon, without a sound, without a groan, slipped out of the saddle and landed with heavy inertness on the ground, face down, and Ronicky Doone touched his shirt sleeve, where the bullet had flicked through the cloth.
He went to Jack Moon and gave the fallen man a cursory examination. It had been instant death. Ronicky looked down with a sort of childlike wonder. How could one bullet have opened the way for the passage of the vital spirit from that enormous frame, so cunningly made for strength and endurance, so trained to feats of strength? How could one bullet have stopped forever the machinations of that crafty brain?
Ronicky went slowly to the girl.
She still sat with her face bowed in her arms, but when he came near, still covering her eyes, she reached out one hand toward him, fumbling like a blind person.
"All's well with him, thank Heaven!"
"Thank Heaven, and thanks to you. Oh, Ronicky, what have you done for us?"
"Only helped your dad fight a ghost out of his past," said Ronicky Doone as gently as before. "Now that the ghost's gone, let's forget all about it!"
