Shepherds of the Wild/Chapter 26
Chapter XXVI
Landy Fargo was not of a mind to have his plan go wrong, so he had given particular care to its details. He didn't want to take even the slightest chance of failure. Not probabilities alone mattered at a time like this: he must consider the remotest possibilities also. And he had not forgotten the pass through the Dark Canyon.
"They may try to drive the sheep out that way," he had said, "and if they get there before eight o'clock, they may make it. By eight at most, I should think, the fire'll get into it—and then of course they're blocked—penned in tight. And we don't want to forget the 'phone line on the old Lost River road—we don't want 'em to get to that and send for help until every pass is blocked. If they leave the sheep and try to ride out, they'll take that way—and that's why I don't want you to fire it earlier in a special trip. I want you to puncture the horse and the man. You can do it—I've seen you shoot too many times to think you can't. All you have to do is wait on the trail. The plan's only half done if that tenderfoot gets out alive—and that's the surest way to prevent it, and a way there won't be no doubt about later. And if you want to spare the girl, all right—but keep her there until the pass is closed."
Nothing could be plainer. José waited on the trail. The fire madness still branded—like fire itself—his face; and he found an evil exultation in watching the slow sweep of the flames behind him. But he didn't intend to wait too long. He didn't want to take any chances on being trapped himself. The way of the forest fire is the way of the wind, and no man can always predict accurately where it will go. Besides, he was just at the mouth of the canyon and had a long ride himself to safety.
The Mexican found nothing to his displeasure in the work. The pay was good, and there had been a certain, savage rapture in aiding in the destruction of the forest and its people. But the work before him now promised best of all. It was just straight shooting and clean killing, and he had been well educated for such work as this. He had known the deserts, the hot battles of his own land; his eyes were true and his hand steady. Best of all, the interview with the girl afforded pleasing conjectures. José had not often operated among women. His eyes were lurid with a fire of different source from the red glamor that was over all the land.
It was eight o'clock, and the fire was only a little behind time. Fargo had estimated with really astonishing accuracy. Already the flames played on the ridges at each side, the tall trees caught, flashed, swayed and fell, and the fiery wall was slowly working down into the canyon's depths. Once there, no passing could be made. He couldn't wait much longer. Fargo would have to forego the detailed report of how Hugh lurched and fell from the saddle at the rifle report. José had to think of his own safety.
And at that instant he flattened in the trail. The butt-plate of his rifle nestled against his shoulder. Of course it might be just the footfall of the running elk, fleeing in terror before the fire, but this possibility died quickly. Before ever the rider came in sight, he recognized the sound as the hoofbeats of a racing horse. Thus he was to have his pleasure, after all.
No deer, quietly grazing toward the thicket where the puma lay crouched, no blind gopher, venturing forth from his burro in the icy gaze of a rattler stretched still and lifeless in the moonlight, ever sped so straight and unsuspecting into an ambush as Alice, riding toward the shadowed mouth of the canyon. A little gleam of hope had returned to her, for she saw that the fire advanced but slowly from the ridge above the canyon, and that she could not only ride to safety but that there was some hope, at least, of Hugh driving his flocks through in time. True, a long ride still remained before her, but even the longest chance was worth praying for. And even as the prayers rose, sweet and appealing, from her lips, José saw her speeding horse through his rifle sights.
His finger was perfectly steady as he pressed back against the trigger. Except for one little telltale curl of his lips, his dark face was impassive. The rifle cracked, a little dart of flame that was scarcely distinguishable in the eerie and terrible glow of the fire spat from the muzzle and the horse shot forward with a strange effect of diving into the dead pine needles. There was no need to shoot twice. The noble heart of the animal was pierced through with the wicked lead. He had done his last service—willingly and well—and what need had he of a more eloquent epitaph?
Alice was fairly hurled through the air, and it seemed an incredible thing that human flesh should endure such a fall and yet retain life. She shot down into a heavy clump of brush a few feet in front of the head of the dead horse. No second rider followed. Fargo's enemy had evidently stayed with his sheep. And for a moment José thought the rest of his own anticipated pleasure would be lacking too: the girl lay very still and curiously huddled in the dry brush.
José sped forward, but in a moment he saw that she was not seriously hurt. The thicket had broken the force of her fall, and although she was unconscious, deep scratches at her throat and arms were her only visible wounds. Once more a flood of dark conjectures returned to him. It would be pleasant, he thought, to have a short chat with her when she wakened,—a grim, exciting little talk at the threshold of the flame. The meeting possessed all kinds of possibilities.
At that instant he saw the pistol that swung at her belt, and he remembered Fargo's word to take no chances. He took hold of her shoulders: and he liked the touch of her warm flesh in his hands. Very softly he drew her to a young tree, letting her half-recline with her shoulders against its trunk. And at the first glance it would have seemed that he was only trying to make her comfortable. The real truth could only be determined when he drew her hands back around the slender trunk and tied them fast.
Hugh had not heard the shot that had killed the horse. The distance was not far and in the silent summer nights he would have heard the sharp sound with ease, but to-night the forest was full of the roar of the fire. And perhaps his senses had already lost some of their acuteness. It seemed to him that a curious stupor was stealing over him, a sadness and a despair that he could not fight off.
In the first place he was terribly fatigued. As the moments had passed, one by one with a dreadful slowness that only men in the peril of death may know, the chances for his escape seemed ever less. The fire steadily encroached upon him, the heat increased, the red glow over the wilderness brightened until the world no longer seemed that into which he was born. And now the sheep had begun to "balk," refusing to be driven. It was a development that a more experienced herder might have expected and dreaded, and it always means that the spirit of the flock is broken. The animals refused to move, standing like forms in stone with legs braced and heads down, and it was a sign that the dread spirit of the wilderness was about to claim its own. When the sheep despair of saving themselves, the herder knows that the end is very near indeed.
They would run forward a little way as the dog barked at their heels, but would halt at once. Hugh could not urge them on at all. The fire swept ever nearer. There seemed no use of further effort now: he couldn't save the flock. And the crudest thing of all was that the shot had gone unheard,—and he could not even turn his strength to the aid of Alice.
And just for an instant Hugh shook off his weight of despair to wonder at the dog. The animal was standing motionless—almost like a bird dog at the point—one foot lifted, ears alert, staring away into the thickets whither Alice had gone. He seemed to have forgotten the sheep. The firelight bathed him, finding a curious reflection in the garnet glare in his eyes. He swung about to eye the sheep and as quickly returned to his rapt contemplation of the forest in front of the flock. And to Hugh it might have seemed that a grim and savage battle was being waged in the dim depths of the faithful creature's soul. He seemed to be torn between two great impulses. One of them was his ancient trust,—to stay and guard the sheep. The other would lead him into the forest ahead.
He was growling now, with a savagery that Hugh had never seen in him before. He turned to his master with a look that was to haunt the man even in those wild moments following, in which he would make his last effort to drive the flock on to safety,—an expression of wistful and unutterable appeal. And then he raced away—just as on a summer day he had sped when one of the lambs had been menaced by Running Feet—into the deep thickets beyond.
A strange and tragic blankness came into Hugh's face. The lips seemed to waver, the firm set of the jaw weakened,—just for an instant. Despair was upon him. Seemingly the forest had beaten him down and broken him at last. Blow after blow, disaster upon disaster, until the spirit broke beneath them.
"So you've deserted me, old Shep," he said simply. "So you're fleeing to save yourself."
For was he not taking the same path that Alice had taken, heading for the deep canyon where perhaps the fire had not yet crept and the pass was open? The blow went deep to Hugh. He was down at last to the elements of life—with death, a stern reality, even now stretching dreadful arms toward him—and it is not good in such moments to have an ancient and beloved trust betrayed. The fight was lost: no honor remained except to go down with the ship.
But Hugh hadn't understood. A pin-prick through the air, Shep had heard the crack of José's rifle. This in itself would not have been enough to call him from his post of duty with the flocks. But through the air came even clearer messages: mysterious vibrations such as only the lower creatures of the earth—closer to the heart of things than their proud masters—could receive. No man may tell in what language those messages were sent, by what impulse they came tingling through the still forest to him, and by what law within himself he made his answer. But it was always the way of the great shepherd dog to hasten to the aid of those of his flock who were in peril. Perhaps in his heart of hearts this slim, tall mistress of his—one whose word must never be disobeyed—was also just one of his wards, in whose service his life was merely a pawn. But in the secret ways of the wilderness he knew of her distress, and had sped to give help.