“Figure you’re right,” said the sheriff. “Okay, boys, just take it easy till the ball opens, if it does.”
A tedious wait followed and Slade grew acutely uneasy. The moon was drifting steadily westward and already the edge of the trail at the bend was growing shadowy. A little more of that west by slightly south trend and their advantage would be wiped out.
A few more minutes passed, then the Ranger stiffened to attention; his keen ears had caught a sound that steadily grew louder—the soft drumming of hoofs on the dusty trail.
“Get set!” he whispered. “They’re coming. Crowd your horses against the brush. Carter, you do the talking. You’re a peace officer and you’ll have to give them a chance to surrender.”
“The hellions don’t deserve it, if it’s really them,” the sheriff breathed. “Can’t take a chance, though, it might not be them.”
A couple of minutes crawled past. Then around the bend, clearly outlined in the moonlight, surged a group of horsemen, six in number. Slade instantly recognized the tall, broad-shouldered rider slightly in front. It was Veck Sosna! The sheriff’s voice rang out—
“In the name of the law! Elevate! You’re covered!”
The riders jerked to a halt with startled exclamations. Instantly Veck Sosna acted. He whirled his horse and sent it charging into the growth to the north. Slade drew and shot, but knew he had missed, for even as he pulled trigger, Sosna crashed into the brush and out of sight. And for the moment Slade had his hands full.
As if their leader’s move had triggered them, his followers went for their guns. The growth jumped and quivered to a roar of sixshooters.
Slade shot left and right, and again. He saw a man topple from his saddle. A second slid sideways to the ground. Lead stormed all about him, one slug graining the flesh of his right arm, another ripping the shoulder of his shirt. His companions were shooting as fast as they could pull trigger, but the light was uncertain, the horses rearing and plunging. One of the deputies gave a yelp of pain. Another barked a curse. His horse, gone half loco, charged in front of Slade and he had to hold his fire.
The three remaining outlaws whirled their horses and, one slumping forward in the hull but keeping his seat, sent them careening back around the bend, the posse yelling and shooting in pursuit.
FOUR
WALT SLADE did not join the pursuit. Instead, he sent Shadow worming his way through the growth to the north, on the faint chance that he might overtake Sosna. It was not impossible that the uncanny hellion had figured what he would do and was holed up somewhere waiting for him. To the devil with him! He’d risk it.
In fact, seething with anger, he was in a mood for anything. Once again Sosna had given him the slip when he thought he was all set to drop his loop. The sidewinder wasn’t human!
Of course Sosna always had one advantage. Slade could not shoot him on sight. The stern code of the Rangers held that the quarry must be given the chance to surrender, and Sosna was not restricted by a code of any kind. He would shoot on sight. The devil with him!
Slade rode on, Shadow avoiding as many thorns and low-hanging branches as possible and plainly disgusted with the whole futile performance. After what seemed a long time they reached the final fringe of the brush. And less than a half mile ahead was the lip of the Canadian River Valley.
There was nobody in sight. The prairie lay silent and deserted in the white flood of the moonlight. As disgusted as his mount, Slade turned west and rode until he had skirted the belt of chaparral. Reaching the trail he pulled up, and rolled and lighted a cigarette. In the far distance to the west he could see rising and falling blobs that were doubtless the posse. Hooking one long leg over the saddle horn, he drew in deep drafts of the satisfying smoke and waited. His normally cheerful disposition was regaining the ascendancy. Sosna got away, his luck plus his uncanny ability still held. Oh, well, maybe next time! He watched the sheriff and deputies draw near and waved a reassuring hand.
The posse straggled to where he sat, their horses still breathing heavily.
“Any luck?” called the sheriff. Slade shook his head.
“Hellion got away,” he replied. “Oh, it was Sosna, all right; I recognized him first off. How about you?”
“No luck, either,” growled Carter. “The sidewinders had better cayuses than we did and pulled away in a hurry, edging toward the Valley. When they went over the edge we gave up. I think one was hit—rode like he was. Anyhow, I figure we did for a couple of ’em. Let’s go see.”
When they reached the bend in the trail, the sheriff’s judgment was vindicated. Two dead men lay in the dust, their horses nosing about and trying to graze on the scanty grass fringing the edge of the brush.
“Ornery looking specimens,” Carter growled as he dismounted. “Indian blood, all right. Let’s see what they got on them.”
“First, is anybody badly hurt?” Slade asked.
“Oh, Perley has a slice along his arm and Wayne a hunk of meat knocked outa his gunhand, nothing to bother about,” the sheriff replied. “I tied ’em up and they’ll do till Doc Beard gets a look at them.”
While the sheriff and the deputies were going through the pockets of the dead outlaws, unearthing odds and ends of no significance and quite a bit of money, Slade approached the horses and opened one of the saddle pouches—each rig boasted two. He rummaged about inside, drew out a shirt and a pair of overalls. Then he hit paydirt. His hand came out filled with packets of bills of large denomination and a couple of rolls of gold coin.
The other pouches produced more treasure. “Looks like they divided up before they turned back east,” he observed, passing the money to the sheriff.
“Say!” exclaimed Carter, “we didn’t do so bad. With what they had in their pockets, must be eight or ten thousand dollars here; we’ll count it carefully when we get to the office. Packing in a couple of carcasses and all this dinero ain’t bad at all.”
“But the he-wolf of the pack made it in the clear,” Slade observed morosely.
“He’ll get his, sooner or later, on that I’m willing to lay a hatful of pesos,” the sheriff predicted cheerfully. “Hoist ’em up, boys, and rope ’em to the saddles. Good looking cayuses, too. We’ll turn ’em over to somebody who can use ’em. All set? Let’s go; I’m hungry.”
The cavalcade got under way, the bodies jerking and flopping grotesquely to the motion of the led horses. Everybody was cheerful, the sheriff and the deputies chattering away blithely. Slade had recovered from his moment of depression and joined in the talk from time to time. Might have been worse. At least he had given Sosna something of a jolt, and right now the outlaw leader wasn’t feeling at all too good over the night’s happenings. Slade doubted that he realized, just yet, that El Halcón was again on his trail and was probably puzzling his head as to how he had been outsmarted.
Not that he would pay much mind to the loss of two of his followers—he could get more—and very likely he had tied onto the biggest share of the bank loot. But being outsmarted was something else again. Outsmarted and lured into a trap. That wouldn’t set at all well with Veck Sosna.
Well, as Slade had learned through experience, if he got mad enough he was also prone to get a bit reckless, which Slade considered was to his advantage, especially if Sosna had not yet learned he was in the section. He rode on in a complacent frame of mind.
Although it was past midnight when the posse arrived in Amarillo with the fruits of victory, there were still plenty of people on the streets. People who stared in astonishment at the