“Murderers, I said!” he shouted, rising up in his saddle. “I call you murderers before God A’mighty and there ain’t a man denies it! Oh, my Mexicans can see that cross –– they’re lookin’ at it now –– and when the river goes down they’ll come in on you, if it’s only to break even for Juan.”
He settled back in his saddle and gazed doubtfully at the bluff, and then at the opposite shore. Nature had placed him at a disadvantage, for the river was wide and deep and his sheep were easy to turn, yet there was still a chance.
“Say,” he began, moderating his voice to a more conciliatory key, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. There’s no use shooting each other over this. Send down your best man –– if he licks me I go around; if I lick him I come across. Is it a go?”
There was a short silence and then an argument broke out along the bluff, a rapid fire of exhortation and protest, some urging Creede to take him up, others clamoring for peace.
“No!” shouted Jefferson Creede, raising his voice angrily above the uproar. “I won’t do it! I wouldn’t trust a sheepman as far as I could throw a bull by the tail! You’d sell your black soul for two bits, Jasp Swope,” he observed, peering warily over the top of the rock, “and you’d shoot a man in the back, too!”
“But look at me!” cried Swope, dropping off his mule, “I’m stripped to my shirt; there goes my gun into the water –– and I’m on your side of the river! You’re a coward, Jeff Creede, and I always knowed it!”
“But my head ain’t touched,” commented Creede dryly. “I’ve got you stopped anyhow. What kind of a dam’ fool would I be to fight over it?”
“I’ll fight ye for nothin’, then!” bellowed the sheepman. “I’ll –– ” He stopped abruptly and a great quiet fell upon both shores. From the mouth of the hidden ravine a man had suddenly stepped into the open, unarmed, and now he was coming out across the sands to meet him. It was Rufus Hardy, dwarfed like David before Goliath in the presence of the burly sheepman, but striding over the hard-packed sand with the lithe swiftness of a panther.
“I’ll fight you,” he said, raising his hand in challenge, but Swope’s answer was drowned in a wild yell from Creede.
“Come back here, Rufe, you durn’ fool!” he called. “Come back, I tell ye! Don’t you know better than to trust a sheepman?”
“Never mind, now,” answered Hardy, turning austerely to the bluff. “I guess I can take care of myself.”
He swung about and advanced to the stretch of level sand where Swope was standing. “What guarantee do I get,” he demanded sharply, “that if I lick you in a fair fight the sheep will go around?”
“You –– lick –– me!” repeated the sheepman, showing his jagged teeth in a sardonic grin. “Well, I’ll tell ye, Willie; if you hit me with that lily-white hand of yourn, and I find it out the same day, I’ll promise to stay off’n your range for a year.”
“All right,” replied Hardy, suddenly throwing away his hat. “You noticed it when I hit you before, didn’t you?” he inquired, edging quickly in on his opponent and beginning an amazing bout of shadow boxing. “Well, come on, then!” He laughed as Swope struck out at him, and continued his hectoring banter. “As I remember it your head hit the ground before your heels!”
Then in a whirlwind of blows and feints they came together. It was the old story of science against brute strength. Jasper Swope was a rough-and-tumble fighter of note; he was quick, too, in spite of his weight, and his blows were like the strokes of a sledge; but Hardy did not attempt to stand up against him. For the first few minutes it was more of a chase than a fight, and in that the sheepman was at his worst, cumbered by his wet clothes and the water in his shoes. Time and again he rushed in upon his crouching opponent, who always seemed in the act of delivering a blow and yet at the moment only sidestepped and danced away. The hard wet sand was ploughed and trampled with their tracks, the records of a dozen useless plunges, when suddenly instead of dodging Hardy stepped quickly forward, his “lily-white hand” shot out, and Jasper Swope’s head went back with a jerk.
“You son-of-a-goat!” he yelled, as the blood ran down his face, and lowering his head he bored in upon Hardy furiously. Once more Hardy sidestepped, but the moment his enemy turned he flew at him like a tiger, raining blows upon his bloody face in lightning succession.
“Huh!” grunted the sheepman, coughing like a wood-chopper as he struck back through the storm, and the chance blow found its mark. For a moment Hardy staggered, clutching at his chest; but as Swope sprang forward to finish his work he ducked and slipped aside, stumbling like a man about to drop.
A shrill yell went up from the farther shore as Hardy stood swaying in his tracks, and a fierce shout of warning from the bluff; but Jasper Swope was implacable. Brushing the blood from his eyes he stepped deliberately forward and aimed a blow that would have felled an ox, straight at his enemy’s head. It missed; the drooping head snapped down like Judy before Punch and rose up again, truculently; then before the sheepman could regain his balance Hardy threw his whole strength into a fierce uppercut that laid Swope sprawling on his back.
A howl of triumph and derision rose up from the rim of the bluff as the burly sheepman went down, but it changed to a sudden shout of warning as he scrambled back to his feet again. There was something indescribably vengeful about him as he whirled upon his enemy, and his hand went inside his torn shirt in a gesture not to be mistaken.
“Look out there, Rufe!” yelled Creede, leaping up from behind his rock pile. “Run! Jump into the river!” But instead Hardy grabbed up a handful of sand and ran in upon his adversary. The pistol stuck for a moment in its hidden sling and as Swope wrenched it loose and turned to shoot, Hardy made as if to close with him and then threw the sand full in his face. It was only an instant’s respite but as the sheepman blinked and struck the dirt from his eyes the little cowman wheeled and made a dash for the river. “Look out!” screamed Creede, as the gun flashed out and came to a point, and like a bullfrog Hardy hurled himself far out into the eddying water. Then like the sudden voice of Nemesis, protesting against such treachery, a rifle shot rang out from the towering crags that overshadowed the river and Jasper Swope fell forward, dead. His pistol smashed against a rock and exploded, but the man he had set himself to kill was already buried beneath the turbid waters. So swiftly did it all happen that no two men saw the same –– some were still gazing at the body of Jasper Swope; others were staring up at the high cliff whence the shot had come; but Jeff Creede had eyes only for the river and when he saw Hardy’s head bob up, halfway to the whirlpool, and duck again to escape the bullets, he leapt up and ran for his horse. Then Bill Johnson’s rifle rang out again from the summit of his high cliff, and every man scrambled for cover.
A Mexican herder dropped his gun suddenly and slipped down behind a rock; and his compadres, not knowing from whence the hostile fire came, pushed out their carbines and began to shoot wildly; the deep cañon reverberated to the rattle of thirty-thirtys and the steady crack, crack of the rifle above threw the sheep camp into confusion. There was a shout as Creede dashed recklessly out into the open and the sand leapt up in showers behind him, but Bat Wings was running like the wind and the bullets went wide of their mark.
Swinging beneath the mesquite trees and scrambling madly over stones and bushes he hammered up the slope of Lookout Point and disappeared in a cloud of dirt, but as Hardy drifted around the bend and floated toward the whirlpool there was a crash of brush from down the river and Creede came battering through the trees to the shore. Taking down his reata as he rode he leapt quickly off his horse and ran out on the big flat rock from which they had often fished together. At his feet the turbid current rolled ponderously against the solid wall of rock and, turning