The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod RaineЧитать онлайн книгу.
first time. His answer was instant. Flinging up his rifle, he pumped a shot at York.
Neil's retort came in a flash. Reilly clutched at his heart and toppled backward from the precipice upon which he stood. Collins joined the cowpuncher and together they stepped forward to the point from which Reilly had plunged down two hundred feet to the jagged rocks below.
At the curve they came face to face with Bucky O'Connor. Three weapons went up quicker than the beating of an eyelash. More slowly each went down again.
“What are you doing here, Bucky?” the sheriff asked.
“Just pirootin' around, Val. It occurred to me Leroy might not mean to play fair with you, so I kinder invited myself to the party. When I heard shooting I thought it was you they had bushwhacked, so I sat in to the game.”
“You guessed wrong, Bucky. Reilly and the others rounded on Leroy. While they were at it they figured to make a clean job and bump off York, too. From what York says Leroy has got his.”
The ranger turned a jade eye on the outlaw. “Has Mr. Neil turned honest man, Val? Taken him into your posse, have you?” he asked, with an edge of irony in his voice.
The sheriff laid a hand on the shoulder of the man who had been his friend before he turned miscreant.
“Don't you worry about Neil, Bucky,” he advised gently. “It was York shot Reilly, after York had cut loose at him, and I shouldn't wonder if that didn't save your life. Neil has got to stand the gaff for what he's done, but I'll pull wires to get his punishment made light.”
“Killed Reilly, did he?” repeated O'Connor. “I got Anderson back there.”
“That makes only one left to account for. I wonder who he is?” Collins turned absent-mindedly to Neil. The latter looked at him out of an expressionless face. Even though his confederate had proved traitor he would not betray him.
“I wonder,” he said.
Bucky laughed. “Made a mistake that time, Val.”
“I plumb forgot the situation for a moment,” the sheriff grinned. “Anyhow, we better be hittin' his trail.”
“How about Phil?” Neil suggested.
“That's right. One of us has ce'tainly got to go back and attend to him.”
“You and Neil go back. I'll follow up this gentleman who is escaping,” the ranger said.
And so it was arranged. The two men returned from their grim work of justice to the place where the outlaw chief had been left. His eyes lit feebly at sight of them.
“What news, York?” he asked.
“Reilly and Hardman are killed. How are you feelin', cap?” The cow-puncher knelt beside the dying outlaw and put an arm under his head.
“Shot all to pieces, boy. No, I got no time to have you play doctor with me.” He turned to Collins with a gleam of his unconquerable spirit. “You came pretty near making a clean round-up, sheriff. I'm the fourth to be put out of business. You'd ought to be content with that. Let York here go.”
“I can't do that, but I'll do my best to see he gets off light.”
“I got him into this, sheriff. He was all right before he knew me. I want him to get a chance now.”
“I wish I could give him a pardon, but I can't do it. I'll see the governor for him though.”
The wounded man spoke to Collins alone for a few minutes, then began to wander in his mind He babbled feebly of childhood days back in his Kentucky home. The word most often on his lips was “Mother.” So, with his head resting on Neil's arm and his hand in that of his friend, he slipped away to the Great Beyond.
Chapter 22.
For a Good Reason
The young ladies, following the custom of Arizona in summer, were riding by the light of the stars to avoid the heat of the day. They rode leisurely, chatting as their ponies paced side by side. For though they were cousins they were getting acquainted with each other for the first time. Both of them found this a delightful process, not the less so because they were temperamentally very different. Each of them knew already that they were going to be great friends. They had exchanged the histories of their lives, lying awake girl fashion to talk into the small hours, each omitting certain passages, however, that had to do with two men who were at that moment approaching nearer every minute to them.
Bucky O'Connor and Sheriff Collins were returning to the Rocking Chair Ranch from Epitaph, where they had just been to deposit twenty-seven thousand dollars and a prisoner by the name of Chaves. Just at the point where the road climbed from the plains and reached the summit of the first stiff hill the two parties met and passed. The ranger and the sheriff reined in simultaneously. Yet a moment and all four of them were talking at once.
They turned toward the ranch, Bucky and Frances leading the way. Alice, riding beside her lover in the darkness, found the defenses upon which she had relied begin to fail her. Nevertheless, she summoned them to her support and met him full armed with the evasions and complexities of her sex.
“This is a surprise, Mr. Collins,” he was informed in her best society voice.
“And a pleasure?”
“Of course. But I'm sorry that father has been called to Phoenix. I suppose you came to tell him about your success.”
“To brag about it,” he corrected. “But not to your father—to his daughter.”
“That's very thoughtful of you. Will you begin now?”
“Not yet. There is something I have to tell you, Miss Mackenzie.”
At the gravity in his voice the lightness slipped from her like a cloak.
“Yes. Tell me your news. Over the telephone all sorts of rumors have come to us. But even these were hearsay.”
“I thought of telephoning you the facts. Then I decided to ride out and tell you at once. I knew you would want to hear the story at first hand.”
Her patrician manner was gone. Her eyes looked their thanks at him. “That was good of you. I have been very anxious to get the facts. One rumor was that you have captured Sir Leroy. Is it true?”
It seemed to her that his look was one of grave tenderness. “No, that is not true. You remember what we said of him—of how he might die?”
“He is dead—you killed him,” she cried, all the color washed from her face.
“He is dead, but I did not kill him.”
“Tell me,” she commanded.
He told her, beginning at the moment of his meeting with the outlaws at the Dalriada dump and continuing to the last scene of the tragedy. It touched her so nearly that she could not hear him through dry-eyed.
“And he spoke of me?” She said it in a low voice, to herself rather than to him.
“It was just before his mind began to wander—almost his last conscious thought. He said that when you heard the news you would remember. What you were to remember he didn't say. I took it you would know.”
“Yes. I was to remember that he was not all wolf to me.” She told it with a little break of tears in her voice.
“Then he told me to tell you that it was the best way out for him. He had come to the end of the road, and it would not have been possible for him to go back.” Presently Collins added gently: “If you don't mind my saying so, I think he was right. He was content to go, quite game and steady in his easy way. If he had lived, there could have been no going back for him. It was his nature to go the limit. The tragedy is in his life, not in