Brand Blotters - Page 93/180

So together they passed into the gulch, Bellamy walking by the side of her

horse. Neither of them spoke. At their heels was the soft rustle of many

thousands of padding feet.

Once there came to them the sound of cheering, and they looked up to see

a group of vaqueros waving their hats and shouting down. Melissy shook her

handkerchief and laughed happily at them. It was a day to be remembered by

these riders.

They emerged into a roll of hill-tops upon which the setting sun had cast

a weird afterglow of radiance in which the whole world burned. The cactus,

the stunted shrubbery, the painted rocks, seemed all afire with some magic

light that had touched their commonness to a new wonder.

A sound came to them from below. A man, rifle in hand and leading a horse,

was stealthily crossing the trail to disappear among the large boulders

beyond.

Melissy did not speak, scarce dared to draw breath, for the man beneath

them was Boone. There was something furtive and lupine about him that

suggested the wild beast stalking its kill. No doubt he had become

impatient to see the end of his foe and had ridden forward. He had almost

crossed the path before he looked up and caught sight of them standing

together in the fireglow of the sunset.

Abruptly he came to a standstill.

"By God! you slipped through, did you?" he said in a low voice of

concentrated bitterness.

Bellamy did not answer, but he separated himself from the girl by a step

or two. He knew quite well what was coming, and he looked down quietly

with steady eyes upon his foe.

From far below there came the faint sound of a horse breaking its way

through brush. Boone paused to listen, but his eye never wandered from the

bareheaded, motionless figure silhouetted against the skyline in the ruddy

evening glow. He had shifted his rifle so that it lay in both hands, ready

for immediate action.

Melissy, horror-stricken, had sat silent, but now she found her voice.

"He is unarmed!" she cried to the cowpuncher.

He made no answer. Another sound in the brush, close at hand, was

distracting his attention, though not his gaze.

Just as he whipped up his rifle Melissy sprang forward. She heard the

sound of the explosion fill the draw, saw Bellamy clutch at the air and

slowly sink to the ground. Before the echoes had died away she had flung

herself toward the inert body.

The outlaw took a step or two forward, as if to make sure of his work, but

at the sound of running footsteps he changed his mind, swung to the saddle

and disappeared among the rocks.