Out Of The Depths Part 8

But by the time he came to a slope he had cooled sufficiently to realize the foolishness of bravado. Not unlikely the murderer was lying back out of sight, ready to shoot him when he came up out of the creek. He reflected, and decided that the going was quite good enough in the bottom of the creek bed. He rode on down the channel, over the gravel bars, at an easy canter.

After a half mile the bank became so low and the creek bed so sandy that he turned up on to the dry sod. As he did so he kept his eye warily on the now distant ridge. But no bullet came pinging down after him.

Instead, he heard the thud of galloping hoofs, and twisted about just in time to see a rider top a rise a short distance in front of him.

He snapped down his breech sight and faced the supposed a.s.sailant with the rifle ready at his shoulder. Almost as quickly he lowered the weapon and s.n.a.t.c.hed off his sombrero in joyful salute. The rider was Miss Knowles.

She waved back gayly and cantered up to him, her lovely face aglow with cordial greeting.

"Good noon!" she called. "So you have come at last? But better late than never."

"How could I help coming?" he gallantly exclaimed.

"I see. The coyotes stole your cutlets, and you were hungry," she bantered, as she came alongside and whirled her horse around to ride with him down the creek.

"How did you guess?" he asked.

"I know coyotes," she replied. "They're the worst--" She stopped short, gazing at the bleeding flanks of his pony. "Oh, Mr. Ashton! how could you? I did not think you so cruel!"

"Cruel?" he repeated, twisting about to see what she meant. "Ah, you refer to the spurring. But I simply couldn't help it, you know. There was a bandit taking pot shots at me as I pa.s.sed the ridge back there."

"A bandit--on Dry Mesa?" she incredulously exclaimed.

"Yes; he pegged at me eight or nine times."

The girl smiled. "You probably heard one of the punchers shooting at a coyote."

"No," he insisted, flus.h.i.+ng under her look. "The ruffian was shooting at me. See here."

He put his hand to his left hip pocket, one side of which had been torn out. From it he drew his brandy flask.

"That was done by the third or fourth shot," he explained. "Do you wonder I was flat on my pony's neck and spurring as hard as I could?"

The girl took the flask from his outstretched hand and looked it over with keen interest. In one side of the silver case was a small, neat hole. Opposite it half of the other side had been burst out as if by an explosion within. She took off the silver cap, shook out the shattered gla.s.s of the inner flask, and looked again at the small hole.

"A thirty-eight," she observed.

"Pardon me," he replied. "I fail to--Ah, yes; thirty-eight caliber, you mean."

"It is I who must ask pardon," she said in frank apology. "Your rifle is a thirty-two. I heard a number of shots, ending with the rattle of an automatic. Thought you were after another deer."

He could afford to smile at the merry thrust and the flash of dimples that accompanied it.

"At least it wasn't a calf this time," he replied. "Nor was it a doe.

But it may have been a buck."

"Indian?" she queried, with instant perception of his play on the word.

"I didn't see any war plumes," he admitted.

"War plumes? Oh, that _is_ a joke!" she exclaimed. She chanced to look down at the shattered flask, and her merriment vanished. "But this isn't any joke. Didn't you see the man who was shooting at you?"

"Yes, after I jumped my pony down into the creek. Perhaps the bandit thought he had tumbled us both. He stood up on top the ridge, until I cut loose and made him run."

"He ran?"

Ashton's eyes sparkled at the remembrance, and his chest began to expand. Then he met the girl's clear, direct gaze, and answered modestly: "Well, you see, when I had got down behind the bank our positions were reversed. He was the one in full view. It's curious, though, Miss Knowles--shooting at that poor calf, under the impression it was a deer, I simply couldn't hold my rifle steady, while--"

"No wonder, if it was your first deer," put in the girl. "We call it buck fever."

"Yes, but wouldn't you have thought my first bandit--Why, I couldn't have aimed at him more steadily if I had been made of cast iron."

"Guess he had made you fighting mad," she bantered; but under her seeming levity he perceived a change in her manner towards him immensely gratifying to his humbled self-esteem.

"At first I was just a trifle apprehensive--" He hesitated, and suddenly burst out with a candid confession--"No, not a trifle!

Really, I was horribly frightened!"

This was more than the girl had hoped from him. She nodded and smiled in open approval. "You had a good right to be frightened. I don't blame you for spurring that way. Look. It wasn't only one shot that came close. There's a neat hair brand on your hawss's hip that wasn't there yesterday."

"Must have been the shot just before we took the bank," said Ashton, twisting about to look at the streak cut by the bullet. "The first was the only other one that didn't go higher."

"But what did the man look like?" questioned Miss Isobel. "I can't imagine who--Can it be that your guide has a grudge against you on account of his pay?"

"I wouldn't have thought it possible before yesterday, though he was a surly fellow and inclined to be insolent."

"All such men are apt to be with tenderfeet," she remarked, permitting herself a half twinkle of her sweet eyes. "But I should have thought yours would have kept on going. Whatever you may have owed him, he had no right to steal your outfit. He must be a real badman, if it's true he is the party who did this shooting."

"I shouldn't be at all surprised," agreed Ashton. In her concern over him she looked so charming that he would have agreed if she had told him the moon was made of green cheese.

She shook her head thoughtfully, and went on: "I can't imagine even one of our badmen trying to murder you that way. Their usual course would be to come up to you, face to face, pick a quarrel, and beat you to it on the draw. But whoever the cowardly scoundrel is, we'll turn out the boys, and either run him down or out of the country."

"If it's my guide, he probably is running already."

"I hope so," replied the girl.

"You do! Don't you want him punished?" exclaimed Ashton.

"Of course, but you see I don't want Kid to--to cut another notch on his Colt's."

"I must say, I cannot see how that--"

"You could if you realized how kind and good he has been to me all these years. Do you know, when I first came West, I couldn't tell a jackrabbit from a burro. Daddy had told me that each had big ears, and I got them mixed. And actually I didn't know the off from the nigh side of a hawss!"

"But we--er--have horses and riding-schools in the East," put in Ashton.

She parried the indirect question without seeming to notice it. "You proved that yesterday, coming down from High Mesa. I felt sure I would have you pulling leather."

"Pulling leather?" he asked. "You see, I own to my tenderfootness."

"Grabbing your saddle to hold yourself on," she explained. Before he could reply, she rose in her stirrups and pointed ahead with her quirt. "Look, that's the top of the biggest haystack, up by the feed-sheds. You'll see the buildings in half a minute."