Adventure Magazine Cover — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

572 at a gallop, all were content to follow blindly. “None questioned his skill, nor his cool- ness and courage in the hour of conflict. All had heard stories of his almost miracu- lous feats in the following of horse-thieves and marauding Indians to their ruin, but few, I think, were prepared for the ease and certainty with which this man-hunter car- ried the trail at a speed as high as we dared urge our horses, over flinty mesas, up slopes of broken lava, through thorny fields of cac- tus and sage-brush, across a succession of lateral ravines that now, for the first time in many years, brought down to the river a hundred roaring streams, and on across scrub and chaparral, to the south, toward the outlaw’s hoped-for refuge in the moun- tains of Mexico. “Tt was a wild ride and there were thirty wild men riding. Pico, half crazed by the horror of his daughter’s possible fate, urging on with brief, inflammatory appeals the already excessive ardor of the pursuers; Cady, silent and alert, rode a rod or two in advance, followed by Kenneth, Pico’s fore- man, a gigantic Scotchman, a violent man of great physical power and energy. I rode with Pico when the exigencies of the trail permitted. The others followed as best they could keep the pace. ‘“‘At sunrise we were thirty miles south of the Pico ranch and upon the high mesa two miles east of the river. Here the trail entered, but did not cross, a deep and rough ravine that ran at right angles to the course hitherto taken by the fleeing desperado. Cady plunged without hesitation down the steep bank and clung to the lessening trace over bare spaces of slab stone, clean-washed by the storm, and across acres of boulder- covered bars, until the portal of the canyon was reached, where the storms of ages had cut a narrow channel to the river. Before this rock-walled gateway Cady halted, leap- ed from his horse and waited until all had come up. ‘““Dismount, men!’ he said, ‘The beast is at bay.’ “ “This canyon,’ he said, ‘twists to the right a hundred yards below, then opens into a big triangle facing the river. The jaws are two hundred yards apart, but each jaw is jammed square against the precipi- tous bank of the river. The bank on this side is a basalt bluff twenty feet high; the opposite bank is low, and a trail leads up a Adventure ravine from the water to the Obsidian Hills. Tigre knows the trail, but he forgot the storm. Do you hear the roar of the river? It is filled with jagged blocks of basalt, and the flood is now a regular water-cyclone. No horse or man that ever lived could cross it. The game is bagged. There is a heavy thicket along the bluff on this side of the river and he will be in the brush. There will bea fight. Every man must cover him- self as best he can. Take no chances on Tigre Palladis. Shoot anything that moves; the woman will be hid.’ “Dismounted, we followed down the gorge until we reached the outlet and noted the heavy wall of brush that hid the river from our view. Beyond this the rage of the waters made itself manifest in terrible bel- lowings. Cady said: ‘“**There may be trouble in the first fifty yards of open ground, and every man must make straight to the thicket. Move rap- idly. If Tigre fires, riddle the spot from which the shot comes, and run in upon him. Shoot him down; he will not surren- der.’ “Our rush followed, and was met by the crack of a Winchester. Ramon Aguates, a young ranchero, threw up his hands, spun around upon his toes and fell stone-dead. He had hardly touched the ground when another man, close by my side, sank slowly to his knees, gave a little sigh, and crumpled up into a shapeless heap. Tigre’s second shot was not heard, as our volley came at the same instant. Our second volley cut a wide swath in the foliage at the point where the smoke from the desperado’s rifle hung, and was instantly followed by a woman’s scream. “Hold, men!’ cried Pico, ‘We are killing my child?’ “Cady sprang into the open and, raising his right hand, cried: ‘* ‘Tigre, give us the lady uninjured and I swear that you shall go and not be followed!’ ‘“‘No answer came, and it may be that the river’s voice drowned the call. Neither did any shot follow. Not knowing what to ex- pect, we crept forward, taking the protec- tion of every shrub and stone, until we reached and entered the thicket. “Here we recognized our disadvantage in that we dared not fire upon any moving thing until we first ascertained whether it be friend or foe. But Tigre would know that every sound or motion marked an ene- GCOMIGEDOOKSEEO