Something like a foreknowledge came to him, telling him that the thing
would never be done--that he had surrendered his last chance of Drew
when he turned back to go to Sally. It was as if he took a choice
between the killing of the man and the love of the woman. But he said
nothing of his forebodings and helped her quietly to rearrange the small
pack. They saddled and took the trail which pointed up over the
mountains--the same trail which they had ridden in an opposite direction
the night before.
He rode with his head turned, taking his last look at the old house of
Drew, with its blackened, crumbling sides, when the girl cried softly:
"What's that? Look!"
He stared in the direction of her pointing arm. They were almost
directly under the shoulder of rocks which loomed above the trail along
the edge of the lake. Anthony saw nothing.
"What was it?"
He checked his horse beside hers.
"I thought I saw something move. I'm not sure. And there--back,
Anthony!"
And she whirled her horse. He caught it this time clearly, the
unmistakable glint of the morning light on steel, and he turned the grey
sharply. At the same time a rattling blast of revolver shots crackled
above them; the grey reared and pitched back.
By inches he escaped the fall of the horse, slipping from the saddle in
the nick of time. A bullet whipped his hat from his head. Then the hand
of the girl clutched his shoulder.
"Stirrup and saddle, Anthony!"
He seized the pommel of the saddle, hooked his foot into the stirrup
which she abandoned to him, and she spurred back toward the old house.
A shout followed them, a roar that ended in a harsh rattle of curses;
they heard the spat of bullets several times on the trees past which
they whirled. But it was only a second before they were once more in the
shelter of the house. He stood in the centre of the room, stunned,
staring stupidly around him. It was not fear of death that benumbed him,
but a rising horror that he should be so trapped--like a wild beast
cornered and about to be worried to death by dogs.
As for escape, there was simply no chance--it was impossible. On three
sides the lake, still beautiful, though the colour was fading from it,
effectively blocked their way. On the fourth and narrowest side there
was the shoulder of rocks, not only blocking them, but affording a
perfect shelter for Nash and his men, for they did not doubt that it was
he.
"They think they've got us," said a fiercely exultant voice beside him,
"but we ain't started to make all the trouble we're goin' to make."
Life came back to him as he looked at her. She was trembling with
excitement, but it was the tremor of eagerness, not the unmistakable
sick palsy of fear. He drew out a large handkerchief of fine, white
linen and tied it to a long splinter of wood which he tore away from one
of the rotten boards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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