The Return of the Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs (top inspirational books TXT) 📕

MR. ANTHONY HARDING was pacing back and forth the length of the veranda of the ranchhouse at El Orobo waiting for some word of hope from those who had ridden out in search of his daughter, Barbara. Each swirling dust devil that eddied across the dry flat on either side of the river roused hopes within his breast that it might have been spurred into activity by the hoofs of a pony bearing a messenger of good tidings; but always his hopes were dashed, for no horseman emerged from the heat haze of the distance where the little dust devils raced playfully among the cacti and the greasewood.

But at last, in the northwest, a horseman, unheralded by gyrating dust column, came into sight. Mr. Harding shook his head sorrowfully. It had not been from this direction that he had expected word of Barbara, yet he kept his eyes fastened upon the rider until the latter reined in at the ranchyard and loped a tired and sweating pony to the foot of the veranda steps. Then Mr. Harding saw who the newcomer was.

“Bridge!” he exclaimed. “What brings you back here? Don’t you know that you endanger us as well as yourself by being seen here? General Villa will think that we have been harboring you.”

Bridge swung from the saddle and ran up onto the veranda. He paid not the slightest attention to Anthony Harding’s protest.

“How many men you got here that you can depend on?” he asked.

“None,” replied the Easterner. “What do you mean?”

“None!” cried Bridge, incredulity and hopelessness showing upon his countenance. “Isn’t there a Chinaman and a couple of faithful Mexicans?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” assented Mr. Harding; “but what are you driving at?”

“Pesita is on his way here to clean up El Orobo. He can’t be very far behind me. Call the men you got, and we’ll get together all the guns and ammunition on the ranch, and barricade the ranchhouse. We may be able to stand ‘em off. Have you heard anything of Miss Barbara?”

Anthony Harding shook his head sadly.

“Then we’ll have to stay right here and do the best we can,” said Bridge. “I was thinking we might make a run for it if Miss Barbara was here; but as she’s not we must wait for those who went out after her.”

Mr. Harding summoned the two Mexicans while Bridge ran to the cookhouse and ordered the Chinaman to the ranchhouse. Then the erstwhile bookkeeper ransacked the bunkhouse for arms and ammunition. What little he found he carried to the ranchhouse, and with the help of the others barricaded the doors and windows of the first floor.

“We’ll have to make our fight from the upper windows,” he explained to the ranch owner. “If Pesita doesn’t bring too large a force we may be able to stand them off until you can get help from Cuivaca. Call up there now and see if you can get Villa to send help—he ought to protect you from Pesita. I understand that there is no love lost between the two.”

Anthony Harding went at once to the telephone and rang for the central at Cuivaca.

“Tell it to the operator,” shouted Bridge who stood peering through an opening in the barricade before a front window; “they are coming now, and the chances are that the first thing they’ll do is cut the telephone wires.”

The Easterner poured his story and appeal for help into the ears of the girl at the other end of the line, and then for a few moments there was silence in the room as he listened to her reply.

“Impossible!” and “My God! it can’t be true,” Bridge heard the older man ejaculate, and then he saw him hang up the receiver and turn from the instrument, his face drawn and pinched with an expression of utter hopelessness.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bridge.

“Villa has turned against the Americans,” replied Harding, dully. “The operator evidently feels friendly toward us, for she warned me not to appeal to Villa and told me why. Even now, this minute, the man has a force of twenty-five hundred ready to march on Columbus, New Mexico. Three Americans were hanged in Cuivaca this afternoon. It’s horrible, sir! It’s horrible! We are as good as dead this very minute. Even if we stand off Pesita we can never escape to the border through Villa’s forces.”

“It looks bad,” admitted Bridge. “In fact it couldn’t look much worse; but here we are, and while our ammunition holds out about all we can do is stay here and use it. Will you men stand by us?” he addressed the Chinaman and the two Mexicans, who assured him that they had no love for Pesita and would fight for Anthony Harding in preference to going over to the enemy.

“Good!” exclaimed Bridge, “and now for upstairs. They’ll be howling around here in about five minutes, and we want to give them a reception they won’t forget.”

He led the way to the second floor, where the five took up positions near the front windows. A short distance from the ranchhouse they could see the enemy, consisting of a detachment of some twenty of Pesita’s troopers riding at a brisk trot in their direction.

“Pesita’s with them,” announced Bridge, presently. “He’s the little fellow on the sorrel. Wait until they are close up, then give them a few rounds; but go easy on the ammunition —we haven’t any too much.”

Pesita, expecting no resistance, rode boldly into the ranchyard. At the bunkhouse and the office his little force halted while three or four troopers dismounted and entered the buildings in search of victims. Disappointed there they moved toward the ranchhouse.

“Lie low!” Bridge cautioned his companions. “Don’t let them see you, and wait till I give the word before you fire.”

On came the horsemen at a slow walk. Bridge waited until they were within a few yards of the house, then he cried: “Now! Let ‘em have it!” A rattle of rifle fire broke from the upper windows into the ranks of the Pesitistas. Three troopers reeled and slipped from their saddles. Two horses dropped in their tracks. Cursing and yelling, the balance of the horsemen wheeled and galloped away in the direction of the office building, followed by the fire of the defenders.

“That wasn’t so bad,” cried Bridge. “I’ll venture a guess that Mr. Pesita is some surprised—and sore. There they go behind the office. They’ll stay there a few minutes talking it over and getting up their courage to try it again. Next time they’ll come from another direction. You two,” he continued, turning to the Mexicans, “take positions on the east and south sides of the house. Sing can remain here with Mr. Harding. I’ll take the north side facing the office. Shoot at the first man who shows his head. If we can hold them off until dark we may be able to get away. Whatever happens don’t let one of them get close enough to fire the house. That’s what they’ll try for.”

It was fifteen minutes before the second attack came. Five dismounted troopers made a dash for the north side of the house; but when Bridge dropped the first of them before he had taken ten steps from the office building and wounded a second the others retreated for shelter.

Time and again as the afternoon wore away Pesita made attempts to get men close up to the house; but in each instance they were driven back, until at last they desisted from their efforts to fire the house or rush it, and contented themselves with firing an occasional shot through the windows opposite them.

“They’re waiting for dark,” said Bridge to Mr. Harding during a temporary lull in the hostilities, “and then we’re goners, unless the boys come back from across the river in time.”

“Couldn’t we get away after dark?” asked the Easterner.

“It’s our only hope if help don’t reach us,” replied Bridge.

But when night finally fell and the five men made an attempt to leave the house upon the side away from the office building they were met with the flash of carbines and the ping of bullets. One of the Mexican defenders fell, mortally wounded, and the others were barely able to drag him within and replace the barricade before the door when five of Pesita’s men charged close up to their defenses. These were finally driven off and again there came a lull; but all hope of escape was gone, and Bridge reposted the defenders at the upper windows where they might watch every approach to the house.

As the hours dragged on the hopelessness of their position grew upon the minds of all. Their ammunition was almost gone—each man had but a few rounds remaining—and it was evident that Pesita, through an inordinate desire for revenge, would persist until he had reduced their fortress and claimed the last of them as his victim.

It was with such cheerful expectations that they awaited the final assault which would see them without ammunition and defenseless in the face of a cruel and implacable foe.

It was just before daylight that the anticipated rush occurred. From every side rang the reports of carbines and the yells of the bandits. There were scarcely more than a dozen of the original twenty left; but they made up for their depleted numbers by the rapidity with which they worked their firearms and the loudness and ferocity of their savage cries.

And this time they reached the shelter of the veranda and commenced battering at the door.

At the report of the rifle so close to them Billy Byrne shoved Barbara quickly to one side and leaped forward to close with the man who barred their way to liberty.

That they had surprised him even more than he had them was evidenced by the wildness of his shot which passed harmlessly above their heads as well as by the fact that he had permitted them to come so close before engaging them.

To the latter event was attributable his undoing, for it permitted Billy Byrne to close with him before the Indian could reload his antiquated weapon. Down the two men went, the American on top, each striving for a death-hold; but in weight and strength and skill the Piman was far outclassed by the trained fighter, a part of whose daily workouts had consisted in wrestling with proficient artists of the mat.

Barbara Harding ran forward to assist her champion but as the men rolled and tumbled over the ground she could find no opening for a blow that might not endanger Billy Byrne quite as much as it endangered his antagonist; but presently she discovered that the American required no assistance. She saw the Indian’s head bending slowly forward beneath the resistless force of the other’s huge muscles, she heard the crack that announced the parting of the vertebrae and saw the limp thing which had but a moment before been a man, pulsing with life and vigor, roll helplessly aside—a harmless and inanimate lump of clay.

Billy Byrne leaped to his feet, shaking himself as a great mastiff might whose coat had been ruffled in a fight.

“Come!” he whispered. “We gotta beat it now for sure. That guy’s shot’ll lead ‘em right down to us,” and once more they took up their flight down toward the valley, along an unknown trail through the darkness of the night.

For the most part they moved