Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

Longhorns creaking of a wagon in the shadowy valley beneath them. | “We'll just ride down an’ see who’s travelin’ the old C-Y trail,’? observed Mr. Saltoun, and headed diagonally down the slope. But it was Chuck who reached the wagon first. As he cut across in front of the team the driver uttered a frightened ‘‘Whoa!”’ and pulled up. Some one else on the seat gave a little, suppressed shriek. “Mrs. Dale!” cried Chuck. “Mrs. Dale and Molly,” said that lady in a relieved tone. ‘‘My! How you scared me. And here’s Miss Rainbow. How do you do, my dear?” She ceased speaking as Mr. Saltoun’s bulk appeared in the wake of the Rainbow. ‘““Ma’am,”’ said Chuck, ‘“‘have yuh been away from home long?” ‘Since day before yesterday.” “‘Day before yesterday!”’ “‘Why, yes. We had to have supplies, and I prcferred going myself to sending Jane, after what you told me, and——”’ ‘An’ this’ll make the third night she’s been alone with her dad!”’ “You don’t thin fe “T don’t think nothin’, but I know I’m goin’ to the C-Y right now quick.” Without a word to Mr. Saltoun Chuck jerked round Peppermint and galloped off in the direction of Moccasin Spring. “Three nights!”” he muttered. ‘Just the chance they was lookin’ for! My Gawd! My Gawd!’ He slowed Peppermint a turn, for there was a long. thirty-mile ride in front of the horse’s nose. There was a sharp drumming of hoofs in the rear, and the Rainbow drew alongside. “Guess Pll trail with you, Chuck,” was all she said. “T’m glad,” he told her simply. Up and down long treeless slopes, across flats where cottonwoods grew beside tiny creeks and wild things bounced up under their horses’ feet and fled into the darkness, through long wide draws and short narrow washes, galloped the puncher and the half- breed girl. Neither spoke till nearly half the distance lay behind them, then the Rainbow said— ‘“‘Windigo’s tiring.” ‘He sounds all right to me,” returned Chuck, cocking an ear to the regular drum- ming of the hoofs. “He ain’t stumbled yet.” but he had already done too much. 93 ‘‘He never stumbles, no matter how tired he is. But I can feel his shoulder-muscles. They’re not playing so smoothly. I don’t wonder. He’s been on the go all day—forty miles if an inch, and this thirty on top of it. Oh, you can’t blame him. Still, I don’t believe I’ll reach’ the C-Y very far behind you. Pull over, Chuck. We go west of this grove of pines. It’s shorter.” They passed so near the singing pines that Chuck could hear the deep diapason of the west wind in the branches. The eery, mournful soughing intensified the grim fore- boding in his mind. Suppose he should come too late? And too late for what? The terrible uncertainty of it all was what stretched his very soul on the rack. A mile or two beyond the pine-grove, Peppermint began to pull away from Win- digo. The red horse was doing his best, His great heart could not respond. The Rain- bow, all but weeping with rage at being beaten by Chuck, although she controlled her voice well enough, did not take her quirt from the saddle-horn. “T sha’n’t urge him, Chuck,” she called. - “He'll make it if I go easy, so I’ll slow down. Keep a-going. See you later.” Almost in an instant the free-striding gray carried Chuck out of hearing of the Rainbow. ‘The puncher was an excellent rider. He knew how to get the most out ofa horse. But that night he rode as he had never ridden in all his life. And Pepper- mint, that bundle of steel nerves and raw- hide muscles, galloped as he had never gal- loped in all his life. Chuck, as he rode, made no sound. But inside he turned alternately from fire to ice. One moment fairly seething with the boiler- pressure of his rage against the men who would so much as lift a finger against his goddess, and the next cold with the fear of what might happen or perhaps had already happened to her, Chuck learned the mean- ing of hell on earth during the wild rush of that long ride to the C-Y. Toward the last Chuck began to employ spurs and quirt. Peppermint was game as a badger, but he was staggering in his stride when Chuck sighted a spark of light ahead and knew that it was the C-Y. Hoarsely panting, his lungs well-nigh bursting under the strain, the gray con- trived to keep his feet till the ranch-house was a scant quarter-mile distant. Then he COmicloo C©