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<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h3>THE MAN-HUNT</h3> I reckon that civilised folks are trained to run in a rut, to live by rule, to do what's expected. If they're chased they'll run, if they're caught they surrender. That's the proper thing to do. Our plainsman, he's a much resourceful animal: he never runs in the rut, and he always does exactly what's not expected. Here were Jim and Curly surrounded by five men all hot for war. Broach could shoot good, but his horse was a plumb idiot when it came to firing. He was scared he would miss Jim, and get the counter-jumper who pranced around behind. Of the rest, one was a railroad man, and useless at that, one was a carpenter, and one was a barber—all of them bad shots. Still, they knew that their prisoners could neither fight nor run. The prisoners did both most sudden, and heaps surprising. While Jim's moustache was dropping, Curly's first bullet got Broach's horse in the eye, sending him backwards over on top of the man. Jim unhorsed the railroad man, the carpenter disabled the barber, and the counter-jumper bolted. That posse was all demoralised, shooting liberal, attracting heaps of attention. So another belated outfit of citizens came whooping down the road, while at the first sound of battle, the crowd I was with swung round at full gallop to share the play. I knew my youngsters were in foul bad luck. Yet in a single evening these two had got to feeling each other's thoughts, acting together without talk, partners like the hands of a man. They knew that for them it was death to show on the skyline, sure good scouting to jump for the lowest ground, and keep the dust a-rolling to hide their movements. They struck a gulley, and Jim led over rock and cactus, riding slack rein, trusting that buckskin mare. After the first five minutes, looking round, he saw the belated outfit along the skyline following, and heard the whoops of our crowd closing in on the left. "I reckon," says Curly, "they'll get us." "Very awkward," says Jim. "Say, Curly," he called out, "there's a fence here somewhere on Chalkeye's pasture. It's broken where it cuts this arroyo, but just 'ware wire! Here! 'Ware wire!" The mare took a stumble, but cleared the fallen wire. The black horse just jumped high. Up on the plain above the pursuit was going to be checked by my standing fence. "We're plumb in luck to the lips," says Curly. And now the rocky hollow widened out, the trail was smooth, the pace tremendous. While our citizens behind were having a check betwixt rock and wire, Jim struck the further gate of my pasture, and held it wide for Curly. Horsemanship had given the partners a mile of gain, but now, on level ground, where any fool could ride, our posse gained rapidly, for the youngsters had to go moderate and save their horses. "Down on yo' hawss," says Curly, "you ride too proud," and a spatter of blue lead made Jim lie humble. The fool gallopers were right handy for war, when sudden the winding valley poured out its fan of débris upon the lower plain towards Mexico. Here just below the mouth of the arroyo a railroad track swung right across the trail on a high embankment. On the nigh side of the embankment ran a waggon trail, climbing a hill on the left to cross the track, and that was sure foul luck for Jim and Curly, for now they rode out clear against the sky in a storm of lead, and began to reckon they was due at the big front door of heaven. Jim was all right in a moment, for the buckskin mare just rose to the occasion, leapt the rails, and got to cover down the bank beyond; but Curly's horse was an idiot. At the sight of the gleaming rails, he stopped dead to show himself off, shied, bucked, pawed the full moon, fell in heaps, tumbled all over himself, dug a hole in the ground with his nose, and timed the whole exhibition to get Curly shot. The gallopers were right on to him before he chose to proceed, with flanks spurred bloody, down the further bank. Jim circled back to the rescue. "Hurt?" he called. Curly lay all of a heap on the saddle. "Shoot!" he howled, and flashed on across the plain. Jim got the gallopers stark against the sky at point-blank range, and just whirled in for battle, piling the track with dead and dying horses, blocking the passage complete. Then he streaked away to see if Curly had gone dead on Jones' back. Five minutes after that, Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came blundering into the wreckage. He jumped through somehow, leading eighteen men, but I stopped to help a hurt man, and used his rifle to splint his broken leg. The fool gallopers were mostly wrung out, and gone home, or left afoot by Jim. The good stayers were on ahead, but weary maybe, it being late for pleasuring. So I proceeded to have an attack of robbers all to myself, with the wounded man's revolver and my own, shooting promiscuous. Sure enough, half a dozen of them bold pursuers came circling back to find out what was wrong. When I had turned back with my idiots for home, a ripple spread along the grass, an air from the south, then a lifting wind, full strong, steady as ice aflow, cold as the wings of Death. Jim fought up wind, battling at full gallop until he overtook the little partner, then ranged abreast and steadied knee to knee, nursing his mare at a trot. The moon slid down flame-red behind the hills, the wind blew a gale, the night went black, the sky a sheet of stars. Jim had quit being tired, for his body was all gone numb and dead, so he felt nothing except the throb of hoofs astern. Then he heard a popping of guns faint in the rear, and on that saw flashes of signal firing away on the right, besides other gun-flames back below Mule Pass. He held his teeth from chattering to speak. "Curly, old chap, they've wired for a posse up from Naco, and the City Marshal's men are coming down from Bisley. They're closing in on three sides, and we can't escape." Curly said nothing. "Say, Curly, you're not hurt?" "Mosquito bite," said Curly; "look a-here, Jim. If anything goes wrong, you'll find the captain at La Soledad to-morrow." "What captain?" "My father. I made him swear he'd wait. How's yo' buckskin?" "Flagging." "She'll live through all right. Don't you talk any mo'." "You're losing hope?" "There's allus hope," said Curly, "but them stars seem nearer to we-all." They were riding through greasewood bushes and long grass, whilst here and there stood scattered trees of mesquite. That made bad going for horses, but, when they swung aside for better ground, they nearly blundered into an arroyo. Only the dawn grey saved my boys from breaking both their necks in that deep gap, but now they had got to lose the sheltering darkness, their horses were mighty near finished, and three big outfits of riders were closing down all round them. Jim looked up the sky to see if there were miracles a-coming, for nothing less was going to be much use. Then the Naco people came whirling down on the right, and the black arroyo lay broad across their hopes, so they swung north to look for a crossing, and were thrown right out of the hunt. Presently soon my youngsters had another big stroke of luck, because the Bisley crowd missed aim, and had to swing in behind with the men from Grave City. "Jim," says Curly, "has they closed in yet?" "Our wind is covering all three outfits now." Then came a yell from behind, for in the dawn the hunters had caught sight of their meat. Now close ahead loomed something white like a ghost, and Jim let out a screech as it reared up against him sudden. As he shied wide and spurred, he saw the ghost some better—a limewashed monument, the boundary mark of old Mexico. "Saved!" he yelled. "They can't follow beyond the Line." "They cayn't, but they will," says Curly; "fire the grass!" Jim grabbed a hair from the buckskin's mane, took matches from his wallet and bound them into a torch, struck a light to the tip, and held it in his paws against the roaring wind. Then he made shift to swing himself down till the long grass brushed his fingers. He dropped his torch beside a greasewood bush, and cantered on with Curly knee to knee. That flicker in the long grass grew to a blazing star, spread with the flaws of the wind, swayed its small tongues to lick new clumps and pass the word to others just beyond. The bush blazed up with a roar as only greasewood can, and flung its burning sticks upon the storm, so that the fire spread swift as a man could run over acres of greasewood. To the east was mesquite bush, which burns like gun-cotton in a gale of wind. But now the draught of the fire had made that gale a scarlet hurricane with the stride of a running horse, which flushed the flying cloud wrack overhead, and made red day along the mountain flanks. I reckon that if I'd happened with that outfit of hunters, I should have known enough to bear east and circle round the blaze without loss of time; but the leaders saw the burning mesquite grove, and tried to swing west of trouble. There the arroyo barred them, and before they won to the other horn of the fire their horses had gone loco, refusing to face the heat. Anyways, they stampeded with their riders, and I reckon those warriors never stopped to look back until they had thrown themselves safe beyond the railroad. If they had come out for a man-hunt, they got that liberal and profuse beyond their wildest dreams. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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