drew a breath, speaking quietly. "I guess we're set. Let's go."
He moved away, trailed by the six who were to do the main job in back of town. They made a wide detour of the street end, going a quarter mile into the open desert and cautiously closing in upon the south side of Roaring Horse. Past a corral, past sagging sheds and around all the junk and litter of twenty years' making. A light sprang suddenly out of a hotel window and nearly transfixed them; they fell away and skirted a mountain of dry- goods boxes. Directly against the malodorous rear porch of the restaurant they came to a halt. Mack bent. Gil Daugherty stepped on Mack's cupped hands. A small "hup" exploded from Mack, and Gil shot upward, twisted across shingled eaves, and was lost in the velvet shadows. Rope payed out with a soft snoring murmur. "Goin' back now," whispered Mack and disappeared.
He had elected to make the trip twice in order to keep in touch with both groups and see that nothing went wrong. The bulk of the Stirrup S crew waited with an increasing skittishness in the rodeo field. "I'm takin' my horse, and I want Spec's buckskin. It's the best of the lot, and Jim'll need it. Correct?"
Evidently it was correct. One of the bunch wanted to know what to do if the whole gang got split up following the fireworks. "Every man for himself," decided Mack. "But figger to meet on the road home at about Chickman's creek. And stay home. They might come there and try to burn the outfit. I'm goin'." He took the horses and followed a still wider detour around to the south side. This time he avoided the back of the hotel entirely and left the ponies standing a good fifty yards distant, himself closing on McDermitt and the others. McDermitt was softly cursing. "Damn' rope fouled once. Lin come all the way back to clear it. He's got all I can give him now." This much in a pungent, nervous whispering. Mack moved off, crawling along the end wall of the Red Mill. A hundred yards farther, cloaked in darkness and silence, were the guards. It seemed to him they were unusually silent. That worried him. He returned to McDermitt.
"Think it's done," was the latter's sibilant whisper. "Judas, I'm wringin' wet!"
Lin Tavish dropped down from the roof. Another minute and old Gil Daugherty followed, badly winded. "Fixed."
"Wait." Mack groped to the horses and brought them in. McDermit dallied a rope end to each horn. "All right."
Mack had trouble in keeping his words muffled. "Ed, Rufe, Baldy—yore turn now. Inch around to the far side of the courthouse. When the boys larrup down the street you start shootin' high. Draw the attention of them guards offen the window. Yuh got three minutes to make it."
Those three minutes dragged interminably. The night seemed to be full of extraordinary sounds, yet nothing emerged from the area around the window. Mack sighed. McDermitt swore. Gil muttered, "Time now?"
"Yeah." More waiting while Gil threaded the alley. Yet as they swung into the saddles they heard the wild Apache yell of Gil Daugherty ringing like a trumpet over the housetops and sounding down the street. The echoes of it were still alive when the main body of Stirrup S came thundering in. Guns were out; the beat of shots surged one into another. The clamor rose; those dark shadows pulsed to shrill cries of defiance launched along with the fusillade. All this swirled and smashed along the street and back through the alleys; then gathered into a whirlpool of fury in front of the courthouse.
"Now!" breathed Mack.
"Let's go!"
The three men over at a corner of the courthouse opened fire in unison, waking an immediate and vicious response. The horses walked five yards before the rope set a tension on the horns. "Now," repeated Mack. "Into 'er!" Spurs sank. Beyond, the gun reports spat and crashed, wood popped, and Luis Locklear was shouting angrily. Behind the courthouse a pitched battle seemed to be in session.
"She's out!" muttered Mack.
"Yeh. Gosh I'm thirsty!"
"Slack off—let the ropes go! Come on—we'll get Jim or bust a laig! T'hell with them dudes!"
The two of them started side by side toward the courthouse window. Lin Tavish stumbled against them and joined the galloping advance. A back door of the Red Mill swung ajar and Mack whipped a shot directly beside it. Somebody shouted, and the door slammed hard enough to shake the rickety structure. Somewhere Gil Daugherty was still howling and the sound of it added to the weird and battering and blood-stirring pattern of violence abroad in the shuttering blackness.
"Wait a minute."
A galloping figure came toward them, beating bottles and boxes out of the path. Came recklessly. "Quien es?"
"Jim?"
"All right, Mack. Where's that horse? Give me a gun. I'm naked. Damn your soul, you sure can wreck a town once you get started! Come on—let's sift. Where's that horse?"
All of them racked back past the Red Mill, the restaurant, and Tilton's. Down that alley were the horses. Chaffee caught one and swung up. Mack was stabbing orders at the rest of the group. "McDermitt, ride around and holler at them boys sendin' slugs into the breeze. Say it's all over. Tell 'em to bust. Hey, Jim, where in hell yuh goin'?"
Chaffee was pushing his horse down the alley toward the street. "Come on, Mack. I've got to let these fellows out here know it's time to depart. Don't want 'em holdin' the sack till somebody gets hurt. Here we go!" He reined the pony about and clattered across the sidewalk, swirling into the middle of the street. He rose in the stirrups with the lamplight of the Gusher falling fully upon him and sent out the long, rising cry of the range. Mack shot in front of him, urging haste. Chaffee turned. And together they raced eastward and out of Roaring Horse. A hundred yards beyond the rodeo field they looked back. The street was a merry-go-round of men and beasts, and fights were springing up from building to building.
XII. THE JAWS OF ROARING HORSE
Just beyond the rodeo field Jim Chaffee reined in. "Wait a minute, Mack. We can't go and leave the boys all bound up with trouble. Let's—"
But Mack had fought too hard to see his victory dissipated. "Hey, cut that out. Don't get no fool ideas this late at night. Yore an escaped prisoner, an' they's a bounty on yore scalp. If yuh go back there now somebody'll knock yuh down. Never mind the boys."
"I know that," muttered Chaffee, "but it don't seem right. What's the use of tradin' my scalp for some other Stirrup S man? Locklear's just the lad to take out his grudge on whoever he can."
"No chance," Mack reassured him. "We got it all figured. The whole outfit is scattered by now. And Luis is too busy lookin' for you to monkey with anybody else. Hey, they're comin' thisaway. Let's travel."
A sizeable party galloped eastward along the street, gathering recruits and speed as it traveled. Still a little reluctant, Jim Chaffe wheeled beside his partner and the two of them raced across the undulating expanse of the dark desert. "I guess—" began Chaffee, and was cut short by Mack.
"Hush, Mister Chaffee. This is my party, ain't it? You lemme do the figurin' for the next few minutes. Now spill the scandal. What happened to you last night?"
Chaffee told him in clipped sentences. Mack never said a word until Chaffee related the stampede of the herd into the canyon. At that Mack Moran began to swear passionately. "They'll pay the bill, Jim! They'll pay it if we got to start snipin' from bush to bush! Damn their measly hearts!" Then he fell grimly silent and did not speak again for a full five minutes. "Well, that shows us they's just one thing to do. Yuh got to depart the country for a spell, Jim."
"I've been arguin' that point with myself," said Chaffee. "It goes against the grain. If I do, I'm out of the fight altogether. I'm useless. I'm runnin' away. I'm a licked dog. It don't sound good. I figure I could pick up some grub along the way and hide out over in the lava country. That's close enough to the ranch to keep connections. I could duck around and lay an ear to the ground."
"Won't work," contradicted Mack. "If it was an ordinary case o' holin' up it might do. But yore on the official records as an escaped killer.