A silence fell between them; and the bright, desperate, hopeful eyes of Mary Valentine went from one to the other. She had risen to her feet.
The head of the sheriff sagged; he jerked it straight again with a mighty effort.
“Your oath, Dreer!” he said hoarsely.
“Yes. I intend to stay by it. I'll take no help from her. But if you won't make an exchange, then Mary'll fix you up, anyway. Mary, tie up his shoulder again. Caswell, you're going under!”
The sheriff turned his shadowed eyes upon the girl with a last appeal.
“And let Jess die?” said the girl. “Trade you for him?”
“There's no question of a trade,” broke in Dreer. “I'm a goner, anyway. There's no chance for me to get loose without the use of my hands or my feet, and without your help. There's no question of an exchange. It's only a matter of saving the sheriff.”
“If he drops,” said the girl, very white of face, “then you can try to get away. As long as he has his senses and that gun, you haven't a ghost of hope. I won't raise a hand for him, Jess.”
“Caswell, won't you talk to her?”
“I've never begged for bread or money,” said the dauntless sheriff. “And I won't start now begging for my life.”
“Then I command you, Mary. D'you hear me? I command you to give Caswell a hand.”
“I won't do it, Jess. That's flat.”
“Ain't you got a drop of mercy in your body, girl?”
“Not for your enemies, Jess. Not a drop!”
“I'll tell you a thing I never thought to talk about. It was Caswell that gave me the watch spring that gave me the chance to break away from the jail. He saved my life once. I got a life that I owe to him. He wouldn't let the dogs take me. He took his own chance. And now he's got me in a fair-and-square fight, the first time any man on earth ever did. Mary, for Heaven's sake be a woman. Go help him!”
“You can break my heart, Jess, but you can't budge me with your talk. You're more to me than he is!”
“It's a question of what's right, not one man agin' another. Girl, I tell you he's always played fair on the trail. He's never once used a dirty trick agin' me!”
“No,” she said faintly. “I won't raise a hand.”
Jess Dreer groaned, for the sheriff, the gun falling from his hand, lurched suddenly sidewise and lay on the floor. There was a hoarse cry of satisfaction from Mary. She ran to Jess, whipping out and opening her pocketknife as she came.
“Keep off! If you touch the ropes, Mary, I swear I won't stir after my hands are free. I won't stir. He has my word, Mary, and my word stays good, whether he lives or dies!”
“You're mad, Jess. It's your chance. Our chance together. Oh, Jess, is your word worth more to you than I am?”
She was on her knees, imploring him, wet-eyed. And the face of Jess Dreer turned gray with pain.
“Aye,” he said slowly, at length. “Worth more to me than all the men in the world and all the women. I've got myself the name of a murderer and a robber, girl. What have I got left except my own honor?”
“Who knows it? Who gives you credit for it? Who in the wide world would believe what you're doing now?”
“Me and God know it,” said the outlaw quietly.
She changed her tactics swiftly.
“Are you going to give up like a woman, Jess? Aren't you going to make one try for your life? Aren't you going to fight? Aren't you going to use your own strength, even if you won't let me help?”
“Tear off the old bandage and put a new one on Caswell and I shall.”
“What if he comes back to life? What if he comes out of his faint?”
She obeyed him, then, with frantic haste, first casting one glance through the door, and seeing no sign of horsemen sweeping down the long hillsides. Seconds were worth hours now. The old bandage was ripped away under her knife. She tore off her own outer shirt; and, after tearing it to strips and knotting them together, she managed to make the bandage strong and firm, and the welling of the flow ceased. The sheriff still breathed, though faintly.
But he was already at work. He had planned it swiftly while she worked over the sheriff. Had there been a single cutting instrument in the cabin, so much as a blunt-edged mud scraper at the door, he could have in time frayed the ropes that held him. But there was nothing he could use. His own knife was in his pocket—but how could he reach it without the use of Mary's hands?
If there was no steel to cut the ropes, there was at least the fire. But how to reach it? He had no use of his hands to get out the coals, even if the few sticks in the flimsy old stove had not already burned away to ashes.
He reached his decision at last. Squirming across the floor, he planted his shoulders, swung up his legs, and with one strong thrust of his feet brought down the old stove in a clattering ruin.
A faint smoke went up from the fragments.
He scattered the iron parts, still using his bound feet, for his hands were tied together before him and the elbows were made fast against his sides. The iron was knocked away, but now there was not a trace of a coal. He swayed to his knees and searched, with Mary leaning beside him, desperately questioning him as to his purpose, and getting no answer. And then he found it—two small, swiftly darkening bits of wood coal. He blew on them, and the red returned.
Yet this alone was not enough. He must have fuel. With terrible labor he worked across to the sheriff, tore open his coat, and drew out a packet of letters and loose papers with his teeth. Then, with this prize in his mouth, back to the coals. Over them he piled the papers, and then began to blow.
But it seemed that the contact with the cold paper had completely taken the life from the coals. He blew, but there was no answering upward trickle of smoke. He blew again, and now a faint, pungent odor came to his nostrils. He blessed it with a cry, and in a moment the paper blackened, curled back and a tongue of flame went up. Over the papers, now, he scraped with his feet the remnant of the wood. The loose ends, in turn, took the blaze and crackled.
That done, he got again to his knees and held his bound hands over the point of the flame. If the ropes had held them farther apart, it would have been a simple matter to burn the ropes away, but the wrists were hardly an inch apart, and to ignite the cords he had to sear his own flesh.
And there was Mary Valentine, on her knees beside him; her teeth were set when his teeth set; her head went back in agony when he groaned, and a horrible, sickening odor of burned flesh rose to them. And then—the cords caught fire! Slowly—very slowly. It was maddening to see them blacken, char, before they caught the yellow flame. But at length they were afire. He strained his wrists. One cord parted with a faint snap.
Mary Valentine cried out hysterically with joy.
Then a voice called from the corner of the cabin.
They turned. The sheriff had regained his senses. He sat with his back braced crookedly against the wall, an expression of half-drunken determination and agony on his face, and the revolver in his hand.
“I've seen you, Dreer, and I can't stop you. But the law says—alive or dead—and dead you shall be!”
He raised the gun, grinned with effort as he deliberately sighted it, and then crumpled again on the floor.
The last of the cords parted, and Jess Dreer shook away the smoking fragments.
“But they're coming, Jess!” cried the girl at the door. “They're coming fast. Look!”
Far off, streaming down the hillside, he saw the cavalcade. But they came leisurely; what call was there for hurry?
He took the sheriff under his arms—he could feel the slow heartbeat as he did it—and bore him through the door. Then he swung into the saddle at the same time that the spreading fire in the shack ran up the wall with a great crackling. The smoke and the flame had been a signal to the posse. It came now on the dead run. He could tell even at a distance of a mile and a half.
“Is your horse good for anything?”
“A little. He was played out, but he's tough as leather.”
“Then ride on first; I'll drop behind a little and keep 'em off if they should press us.”
“Not in a thousand years, Jess. Besides, the cowards won't dare to press Jess Dreer on an open trail. I know them!”
“How far do you go on this trail, lady?”
“How far do you think, Jess Dreer?”
“To the end of the world, I reckon.”
“We won't argue the point,” said Mary.
And they cut up the slope at a sharp gallop and dipped over the rim, side by side.
