So this was to be the end!
Gard, securely roped, stood with his back against a cottonwood tree, looking at his captors. There was no mistaking their condition, and they left him in no doubt as to their intentions.
He had not expected this. Re-arrest; re-imprisonment: these had presented themselves to his mind as possibilities; he had not looked to win justice and reinstatement without a struggle, but this—surely no sane mind could have foreseen it as a possibility.
The quick dusk of mid-December had fallen, but one of the men was provided with a stock-lantern. This had been lighted, and threw a miserable glare upon the sodden faces of the men who had him in their power. He glanced from one to the other, finding ground for hope in none.
It was Broome who had captured him. The cowboy had secured the loan of a fellow puncher’s horse, standing at the rail before Jim Bracton’s saloon. It was a good horse, more than a match for the indifferent beast Gard rode. There had been a mad race across the desert, a realizing sense that the danger was real and imminent, and Gard was in the act of drawing his revolver when the rope that Broome flung settled over his shoulders, and pinned his arms down.
“Now you know how it feels, damn you!” Broome said, when the crowd had their captive bound and again in saddle.
“But you don’t git no blindfold,” he sneered. “You’re goin’ to see all that’s a’comin’ to you, good ’n’ plain.” Broome’s face was thrust into his, drunken, distorted, malignant.
“Now my fine Mister Barker-Gard,” the thick voice snarled, “it’s prayers fer your’n. You’ve killed your last man, you sneakin’ coyote you. You’ll swing in jest about two minutes.”
There was a growl of assent from two of the others, and Gard recognized them as the same two ruffians that were fleecing Papago Joe when he had quietly but effectively stopped their game. The fourth man was a stranger to him. It was this one who carried the lantern, and he now held it unsteadily on high, surveying the prisoner with drunken gravity.
“Tell ye what,” he announced to Broome, “Thish ’ere thing’s gotter be done right. Thish ’a free ’n glorioush country. We don’t hang no man ’thout ’n he gits a fair trial.”
“Trial be damned!” Broome roared. “Don’t you go bein’ no fool Sam Hickey. This feller ’s bin tried an’ found guilty long of a real judge ’n jury, already.”
Hickey turned upon him with inebriate severity.
“If you wa’n’t so dangnation drunk, Broome,” he said, “I’d swat ye fer that remark. But y’ ain’t responsible now; that’s whatch y’ ain’t; Thish ’ere thing’s gotter be done decent, I tell you. We ain’t no murderers. We’sh populash o’ Arizona, seein’ justice done; an’ damn you, we’re goin’ to see it.”
“You bet we be!” interjected one of the others. “An’ quick! This feller’s had his trial.”
“Not s’ fast, Hank.” Hickey swung the lantern perilously.
“There’sh a judge, thash me; an’ there’sh jury, thash gotter be you fellers. There—now. Thash all fixed.”
Oh, God! Was it really to end in this tragic farce? Gard pondered it with a sick heart. If it was, why could he not have died in the storm, with Arnold, two years ago?
He realized the futility of any appeal to the creatures before him. They were drunk; irresponsible as dogs at play, and they held his life in their hands. His life: with all its new hope, and love, and aspiration! Moreover, three of them hated him. He owed even these few more moments of breath to the maudlin vagary of the one who did not know him.
“Prish’ner at the bar,” Hickey was mumbling, “You are accusht o’ bein’ convicted o’ the murder o’—Who ’n hell was it he murdered, Broome?”
He turned to Broome with an effort at dignity that nearly flung the lantern in the latter’s face. Broome dodged it, with an oath.
“Dan Lundy, you slitherin’ fool,” he snarled, “Git ahead with your lingo, or we’ll swing you when he’s done fer.”
Hickey ignored the threat.
“Well, prish’ner at the bar, guilty er not guilty?”
“Not guilty! I never touched Lundy,” Gard said, earnestly. “I found him dead in his shack, and they came in just as I was trying to lift him up.”
“Corsh: corsh: very proper to pleade ‘not guilty’. Reg’ler thing—we’d a’ hung ye anyway if yer hadn’t—fer’n example! As ’tish, we’ve gi’n you fair tri’l. Be there anything you wanter say, before thish court perceeds t’ ex’cute sentensh?”
Gard’s soul was in revolt.
“Hickey,” he said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, “This is murder you men are doing. You’ll know it when you are sober.”
As the lantern cast its light upon Hickey’s face it seemed to Gard that he looked startled. He realized, with a sick feeling of helplessness that the fellow’s participation in this deed was due solely to his condition. He even felt a sort of pity for the man when to-morrow’s awakening should bring the knowledge of what he had done. If he could but reach the real man buried in the addled brain.
“I did not kill Dan Lundy,” he insisted, still addressing Hickey; “You will know that some day. Killing me to-night will not be the end of it. Death ain’t such an awful thing that a man’s got to be afraid of it, beyond a certain point. We’ve all got to die some time; so it stands to reason it can’t be such a bad thing as we think. But if I do die to-night, you’ll be alive yet, to-morrow morning, Hickey, and what do you think you’ll do about it then?”
Hickey was staring at him, his jaw loosened, the lantern hanging in a listless hand.
“Aw, shut up,” interrupted Broome. “You’ve said all you got any call to say. We know there’s bin a mistake made, n’ we’re goin’ to fix it up right here. You savez?”
Gard ignored him, still looking at Hickey.
“Know Mrs. Hallard?” he asked, with the quiet of desperation. Since by no endurable possibility could he send a message where, alone, he longed to, he must at least get one word to Kate Hallard.
“Yesh;” was Hickey’s reply. “Know Missish Hallard. Mighty fine lady.”
“Will you tell Mrs. Hallard,” he cast about for words that should guide Mrs. Hallard without enlightening these ruffians. “Try to remember this, please. Tell Mrs. Hallard that Sawyer’s all right. Tell her not to give in to anybody. Anybody, I say. Tell her not to be afraid. Will you remember?”
Hickey carried his lantern a little distance away and set it down at the foot of a tree.
“I’ll tell ’er”; he said, gravely. “Hate ter hang a frien’ o’ Missish Hallard,” he added, “just plum hate ter do’t; but you see yourself how ’tish; law’s gotter take its course; so we gotter hang you.”
“Where’s your rope?” one of the men now demanded, and it was developed that the only rope in the company was the horse-hair riata with which Gard was bound.
“Take it off n’ hang ’im with that,” Hickey ordered, and three men laid hold of their victim, while Broome proceeded, savagely, to loosen his bonds. A wild hope sprang up in Gard’s heart.
It seemed as if Broome would never get done fumbling with the rope, but at last it fell away from his feet. His arms were already untied, but three men held them.
With a quick wrench he shook one free and planted a blow in Broome’s face. The fellow went down, heavily, and Gard fell upon the three others, glorying that at least he could die fighting.
But he did not mean to die. If he could but get an instant’s start he could back his sober wits against their drunken ones, in the darkness.
Hickey proved unequal to battle, and a single thrust put him temporarily out of the fight. Then Gard heard Broome’s voice.
“Shoot ’im! Shoot ’im, somebody!” he roared, and Gard realized that one of the men he struggled with had drawn a gun.
He seized the hand that held the weapon, and there was a three-cornered fight for its possession.
Broome was on his feet, now, trying to find a point of attack. Gard was doing more than fight for the gun. He was gradually forcing activities in the direction of the horses. If only he could shake free for an instant, and make a run for it! He meant to secure Broome’s mount. In a dash for freedom he felt that the odds would be with him.
Broome had by now got into the struggle again, and hurled himself, from behind, upon the man he hated. Gard felt the fellow’s great hands closing about his throat, when suddenly, the revolver for which he was fighting was discharged.
Broome sank back with a yell and a moment later, somewhere, far out on the plain, another revolver cracked.
“Somebody’s coming!” the fellow called “Hank” gasped out, wrenching free. “We’d better git!”
The sense of approaching danger sobered him, for the instant, and he sprang toward his horse. The other fellow would have followed, but Gard held him fast. He, too, realized that help was at hand, and the realization renewed his strength. A moment later, with wild yells, and a rush of swift hoofs, two riders dashed up.
Hank threw himself into the saddle. Manuel Gordo was quicker than he, however, and bore him to the ground with one sweep of a heavy arm, while Sago Irish, Manuel’s mate, dashed to Gard’s assistance. His ready rope had already secured the fellow called “Jim,” when the buckboard appeared, Sandy lashing his broncos to a mad run.
The stars were out, lighting the sky with a brilliance that shamed the lantern’s yellow glow, and Gard’s heart leaped when he saw the lithe figure that sprang from the back-seat, as Sandy Larch brought the horses to their haunches.
The foreman was already hurrying to his friend, but he stopped short as Gard, never seeing him, turned toward Helen. Mrs. Hallard, too, had fallen behind, and the two stood face to face in the bright starlight.
“Helen!”
It was all that Gard could say, but his voice was full of wonder, and joy. He never noticed that he had called the girl by her first name.
Nor did she. For an instant she poised, bird-like, her shining eyes seeking his. All thought of their surroundings had fallen away from both; there was for them, in that moment; only the holy mystery of love, filling their souls. He held out his arms and she came to him as naturally as a child seeks its mother.
Neither spoke. His face was against the bewildering fragrance of her hair as her head lay upon his breast. He held her close, in the safe, sweet haven of his arms.
He tried to raise her face, that he might see it, but she kept it hidden, blessing the kind, wise stars, that would not reveal her scarlet cheeks.
“Look up, darling! Oh, my love, let me see your eyes!”
For answer her arms stole up to his neck, and she clung the closer against the strong, brave heart that had borne so much.
“Did they hurt you?” she whispered. “Are you all safe now? Oh, oh, my dear heart—what if you had not been!”
She was trembling from head to foot. He took her two hands in one of his, carrying them to his lips.
“I am all right,” he said, “if I can only be sure I am awake. But how can I believe you are here if I do not see your face?”
She raised it at last, turning it up to his gaze under the pure starlight, and the sight held him in a hush of wonder.
“You see it is I.” She forced a little smile to her trembling lips, and looked at him, half afraid.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, “it really is. And you came to me. Don’t go away, will you? Don’t ever, ever leave me!”