The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

seen her go crazy, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“‘An’ she wasn’t heah when you went huntin’ fer her?”

 

“Correct.”

 

“Wal, if thet’s so, what do you want to blab about cougars

for?”

 

Wilson’s argument seemed incontestable. Shady and Moze

nodded gloomily and shifted restlessly from foot to foot.

Anson dropped his head.

 

“No matter — if we only don’t hear —” he began, suddenly

to grow mute.

 

Right upon them, from some place, just out the circle of

light, rose a scream, by reason of its proximity the most

piercing and agonizing yet heard, simply petrifying the

group until the peal passed. Anson’s huge horse reared, and

with a snort of terror lunged in tremendous leap, straight

out. He struck Anson with thudding impact, knocking him over

the rocks into the depression back of the campfire, and

plunging after him. Wilson had made a flying leap just in

time to avoid being struck, and he turned to see Anson go

down. There came a crash, a groan, and then the strike and

pound of hoofs as the horse struggled up. Apparently he had

rolled over his master.

 

“Help, fellars!” yelled Wilson, quick to leap down over the

little bank, and in the dim light to grasp the halter. The

three men dragged the horse out and securely tied him close

to a tree. That done, they peered down into the depression.

Anson’s form could just barely be distinguished in the

gloom. He lay stretched out. Another groan escaped him.

 

“Shore I’m scared he’s hurt,” said Wilson.

 

“Hoss rolled right on top of him. An’ thet hoss’s heavy,”

declared Moze.

 

They got down and knelt beside their leader. In the darkness

his face looked dull gray. His breathing was not right.

 

“Snake, old man, you ain’t — hurt?” asked Wilson, with a

tremor in his voice. Receiving no reply, he said to his

comrades, “Lay hold an’ we’ll heft him up where we can see.”

 

The three men carefully lifted Anson up on the bank and laid

him near the fire in the light. Anson was conscious. His

face was ghastly. Blood showed on his lips.

 

Wilson knelt beside him. The other outlaws stood up, and

with one dark gaze at one another damned Anson’s chance of

life. And on the instant rose that terrible distressing

scream of acute agony — like that of a woman being

dismembered. Shady Jones whispered something to Moze. Then

they stood up, gazing down at their fallen leader.

 

“Tell me where you’re hurt?” asked Wilson.

 

“He — smashed — my chest,” said Anson, in a broken,

strangled whisper.

 

Wilson’s deft hands opened the outlaw’s shirt and felt of

his chest.

 

<TT>-335-</TT>

 

“No. Shore your breast-bone ain’t smashed,” replied Wilson,

hopefully. And he began to run his hand around one side of

Anson’s body and then the other. Abruptly he stopped,

averted his gaze, then slowly ran the hand all along that

side. Anson’s ribs had been broken and crushed in by the

weight of the horse. He was bleeding at the mouth, and his

slow, painful expulsions of breath brought a bloody froth,

which showed that the broken bones had penetrated the lungs.

An injury sooner or later fatal!

 

“Pard, you busted a rib or two,” said Wilson.

 

“Aw, Jim — it must be — wuss ‘n thet!” he whispered. “I’m

— in orful — pain. An’ I can’t — git any — breath.”

 

“Mebbe you’ll be better,” said Wilson, with a cheerfulness

his face belied.

 

Moze bent close over Anson, took a short scrutiny of that

ghastly face, at the blood-stained lips, and the lean hands

plucking at nothing. Then he jerked erect.

 

“Shady, he’s goin’ to cash. Let’s clear out of this.”

 

“I’m yours pertickler previous,” replied Jones.

 

Both turned away. They untied the two horses and led them up

to where the saddles lay. Swiftly the blankets went on,

swiftly the saddles swung up, swiftly the cinches snapped.

Anson lay gazing up at Wilson, comprehending this move. And

Wilson stood strangely grim and silent, somehow detached

coldly from that self of the past few hours.

 

“Shady, you grab some bread an’ I’ll pack a bunk of meat,”

said Moze. Both men came near the fire, into the light,

within ten feet of where the leader lay.

 

“Fellars — you ain’t — slopin’?” he whispered, in husky

amaze.

 

“Boss, we air thet same. We can’t do you no good an’ this

hole ain’t healthy,” replied Moze.

 

Shady Jones swung himself astride his horse, all about him

sharp, eager, strung.

 

“Moze, I’ll tote the grub an’ you lead out of hyar, till we

git past the wust timber,” he said.

 

“Aw, Moze —you wouldn’t leave — Jim hyar — alone,”

implored Anson.

 

“Jim can stay till he rots,” retorted Moze. “I’ve hed enough

of this hole.”

 

“But, Moze — it ain’t square —” panted Anson. “Jim

wouldn’t — leave me. I’d stick — by you… . I’ll make

it — all up to you.”

 

“Snake, you’re goin’ to cash,” sardonically returned Moze.

 

A current leaped all through Anson’s stretched frame. His

ghastly face blazed. That was the great and the terrible

moment which for long had been in abeyance. Wilson had known

grimly that it would come, by one means or another. Anson

had doggedly and faithfully struggled against the tide of

fatal issues. Moze and Shady Jones, deep locked in their

self-centered motives, had not realized the inevitable trend

of their dark lives.

 

Anson, prostrate as he was, swiftly drew his gun and shot

Moze. Without sound or movement of hand Moze fell. Then the

plunge of Shady’s horse caused Anson’s second shot to miss.

A quick third shot brought no apparent result but Shady’s

cursing resort to his own weapon. He tried to aim from his

plunging horse. His bullets spattered dust and gravel over

Anson. Then Wilson’s long arm stretched and his heavy gun

banged. Shady collapsed in the saddle, and the frightened

horse, throwing him, plunged out of the circle of light.

Thudding hoofs, crashings of brush, quickly ceased.

 

“Jim — did you — git him?” whispered Anson.

 

“Shore did, Snake,” was the slow, halting response. Jim

Wilson must have sustained a sick shudder as he replied.

Sheathing his gun, he folded a blanket and put it under

Anson’s head.

 

“Jim — my feet — air orful cold,” whispered Anson.

 

“Wal, it’s gittin’ chilly,” replied Wilson, and, taking a

second blanket, he laid that over Anson’s limbs. “Snake, I’m

feared Shady hit you once.”

 

“A-huh! But not so I’d care — much — if I hed — no wuss

hurt.”

 

“You lay still now. Reckon Shady’s hoss stopped out heah a

ways. An’ I’ll see.”

 

“Jim — I ‘ain’t heerd — thet scream fer — a little.”

 

“Shore it’s gone… . Reckon now thet was a cougar.”

 

“I knowed it!”

 

Wilson stalked away into the darkness. That inky wall did

not seem so impenetrable and black after he had gotten out

of the circle of light. He proceeded carefully and did not

make any missteps. He groped from tree to tree toward the

cliff and presently brought up against a huge flat rock as

high as his head. Here the darkness was blackest, yet he was

able to see a light form on the rock.

 

“Miss, are you there — all right?” he called, softly.

 

“Yes, but I’m scared to death,” she whispered in reply.

 

“Shore it wound up sudden. Come now. I reckon your trouble’s

over.”

 

He helped her off the rock, and, finding her unsteady on her

feet, he supported her with one arm and held the other out

in front of him to feel for objects. Foot by foot they

worked out from under the dense shadow of the cliff,

following the course of the little brook. It babbled and

gurgled, and almost drowned the low whistle Wilson sent out.

The girl dragged heavily upon him now, evidently weakening.

At length he reached the little open patch at the head of

the ravine. Halting here, he whistled. An answer came from

somewhere behind him and to the right. Wilson waited, with

the girl hanging on his arm.

 

“Dale’s heah,” he said. “An’ don’t you keel over now —

after all the nerve you hed.”

 

A swishing of brush, a step, a soft, padded footfall; a

looming, dark figure, and a long, low gray shape, stealthily

moving — it was the last of these that made Wilson jump.

 

“Wilson!” came Dale’s subdued voice.

 

“Heah. I’ve got her, Dale. Safe an sound,” replied Wilson,

stepping toward the tall form. And he put the drooping girl

into Dale’s arms.

 

“Bo! Bo! You’re all right?” Dale’s deep voice was tremulous.

 

She roused up to seize him and to utter little cries of joy

 

“Oh, Dale! … Oh, thank Heaven! I’m ready to drop now… .

Hasn’t it been a night — an adventure? … I’m well

— safe — sound… . Dale, we owe it to this Jim Wilson.”

 

“Bo, I — we’ll all thank him — all our lives,” replied

Dale. “Wilson, you’re a man! … If you’ll shake that gang

—”

 

“Dale, shore there ain’t much of a gang left, onless you let

Burt git away,” replied Wilson.

 

“I didn’t kill him — or hurt him. But I scared him so I’ll

bet he’s runnin’ yet… . Wilson, did all the shootin’

mean a fight?”

 

“Tolerable.”

 

“Oh, Dale, it was terrible! I saw it all. I —”

 

“Wal, Miss, you can tell him after I go… . I’m wishin’

you good luck.”

 

His voice was a cool, easy drawl, slightly tremulous.

 

The girl’s face flashed white in the gloom. She pressed

against the outlaw — wrung his hands.

 

“Heaven help you, Jim Wilson! You ARE from Texas! … I’ll

remember you — pray for you all my life!”

 

Wilson moved away, out toward the pale glow of light under

the black pines.