“It was this!” said Ruth Pemberton, holding up the empty shell to Mr. Masterson.
Mr. Masterson’s bullet had gone through pony and rider as though they were papier-mâché. What life might have been left in the latter was crushed out by the falling pony who smashed chest and ribs beneath his heavy shoulder.
The nine other circling bucks gathered about the one who had died. Clustered as they were, there could be no thought of missing, and Mr. Masterson emptied another saddle. With that, the others swooped on the slain and bore them off beyond the hill.
As they did so, far away to the right a single Cheyenne came riding; he was yelping like twenty wolves at once, and tossing something and catching it in his hand. The single Cheyenne was he who had followed the craven Mexican, and the thing he tossed and played with was the Mexican’s scalp. When he had joined the others, and they had laid their dead in a safe place, the whole party again came riding – open order – down the long slope towards the fatal buffalo wallow.
Mr. Masterson picked up the Winchester and forced cartridges into the magazine until it would hold no more.
“They’re going to charge,” said Mr. Masterson, apologising for the Winchester. “It’ll come handy to back up my Sharp’s in a case of quick work. There won’t be time to load, and a Sharp’s is only a single-shot gun, you know.”
Ruth Pemberton did not know, and her mind was running on other matters than guns, single-shot or magazine.
“They’re going to charge?” she asked.
“Yes; but don’t lose your nerve. They’ll make a heap of hubbub, but it’s two for one I stand them off.”
The assurance came as coolly as though Mr. Masterson considered the possibilities of a shower, and was confident of the integrity of Ruth Pemberton’s umbrella.
“One thing!” said Ruth Pemberton wistfully.
“Yes?” said Mr. Masterson, his eye on the Cheyennes, his ear on Ruth Pemberton.
“Don’t let them take me! Kill me first!”
“I’ve intended to from the beginning,” said Mr. Masterson steadily. “First you, then me! You know the Western saying for an Indian fight: Always save your last shot for yourself!”
There was nothing of despair or lack of resolution; he spoke as speaks one who but gives a promise to one who has reason to receive it. He offered it without fear to one who accepted it without fear, and when he had spoken Ruth Pemberton felt as cheerfully light as a bird. She had a desire to seize on the Winchester and take her stand with Mr. Masterson. But her ignorance of Winchesters was there to baffle her; moreover Mr. Masterson, as though he read her impulse, interfered.
“Stay where you are!” he commanded. From where she crouched in the buffalo wallow, Ruth Pemberton heard a whirl of yells, and the grass-muffled drumming of many hoofs; and the yells and the hoof-beats were bearing down upon her with the rush of a tempest. There came a rattle of rifles, and the chuck! chuck! of bullets into the soft earth. In the midst of the din and the clamour she heard the bold roar of the buffalo gun. Then she saw Mr. Masterson snatch up the Winchester, and spring clear of the buffalo wallow to the flat, grassy ground in front. Feeling nothing, knowing nothing beyond a resolution to be near him, live or die, she was out of the buffalo wallow as soon as was he, and on her knees at his feet. She could seize on no one element as distinct and separate from a whirling whole, made up of blur and smoke and yell and rifle crash, with feathers dancing and little ponies charging like meteors! She was sure only of the rock-bound fact to which she clung that Mr. Masterson never moved from where he stood. She heard the spitting, whip-like crack of the Winchester, so different from the menacing voice of the buffalo gun, as working it with the rapidity of a bell-punch he fired it faster than she could count.
The thing was on and by and over in a moment; the charging Cheyennes went to right and left, unable to ride up against that tide of death which set so fiercely in their faces. Nine Cheyennes made that charge upon the buffalo wallow; Ruth Pemberton counted but four to flash to the rear at the close. The four never paused; their hearts had turned weak, and they kept on along the river’s bank, until at a low place they rode in and went squattering across. Five riderless ponies, running wild and lost, gave chase with neighs of protest at being left behind.
Out in front, one of the five Cheyennes who had been shot from his saddle in the charge raised himself, wounded, on his elbow. Mr. Masterson, who had recovered his Sharp’s, sent a bullet into his head. Ruth Pemberton, even through the tingling trance of battle that still wrapped her close, turned cold.
“What else?” inquired Mr. Masterson. “We don’t run any Red-Cross outfit in the Panhandle.”
Ruth Pemberton made no reply: her fascinated eyes saw where a trickle of blood guttered the cheek of Mr. Masterson. She thought no more on dead or living Cheyennes, but with a great sob of horror came towards him, eyeing the blood.
“Only a nick,” said he. “You can’t fight all day without a scratch or two.”
Count Banti began to stir. He sat up in a foolish way and looked at Ruth Pemberton. She turned from him, ashamed, and let her gaze rove to where the Cheyennes, far beyond the river, were rounding the corner of a hill. There was nothing she could say to Count Banti.
Mr. Masterson loosened and mounted Houston, which seasoned pony had comported himself throughout the mêlée with the steadiness which should go with his name. Presently he rode back to the buffalo wallow, and instead of four, there were eleven scalps on his bridle rein.
“A man should count his coups,” he vouchsafed in explanation.
There was no need of defence; Ruth Pemberton, without understanding the argument which convinced her own breast, looked upon those scalps as the fitting finale of the morning’s work.
Mr. Masterson caught up the buckboard horse, mate to the one upon which the Mexican had fled, and strapped a blanket on its back for the use and behoof of Count Banti – still speechless, nerves a-tangle. Then Mr. Masterson, taking a spare cinch from his war-bags, to the disgust of Houston, proceeded with more blankets to construct a pillion upon which Ruth Pemberton might ride behind him. Houston, as he felt the cinch drawing, pointed his ears resentfully.
“Well?” threatened Mr. Masterson.
Houston relaxed the resentful ears and acquiesced with grace, fearing worse.
Mr. Masterson from the saddle held out his hand; Ruth Pemberton took it and, making a step of the stirrup which he tendered, sprang to the pillion.
“You can hold on by my belt,” quoth Mr. Masterson.
And so they came back to the ’Dobe Walls; Ruth Pemberton’s arms about Mr. Masterson, her cheek against his shoulder, while her soul wandered up and down in a world of strange happinesses, as one might walk among trees and flowers, with birds singing overhead.
Four days; and the buckboard bearing Ruth Pemberton, Madam Pemberton and Count Banti drew away for the North. A lieutenant with ten cavalrymen, going from Fort Elliot to Dodge, accompanied them by way of escort.
“And so you hate the East?” Ruth Pemberton had asked Mr. Masterson that morning before the start, her eyes dim, and her cheeks much too pale for so innocent a question.
“No, not hate,” returned Mr. Masterson, “but my life is in the West.”
As the buckboard reached the ridge from which would come the last glimpse of the Canadian, off to the south and west, outlined against the sky, stood a pony and rider. The rider waved his sombrero in farewell. Ruth Pemberton gazed and still gazed; the hunger of the brown eyes was as though her love lay starving. The trail sloped sharply downward, and the picture of the statue horseman on the hill was snatched away. With that – her life turned drab and desolate – Ruth Pemberton slipped to the floor of the buckboard, and buried her face in her mother’s kindly