Now,Brick,said Red slowly,this ain't the first time you have proved yourself no man for our business,and I call Kansas to witness you've brought this on yourself--Without finishing his sentence,Red swiftly raised his arm and fired pointblank at Willock's head as it was defined above the sleeping form.Though famed as an orator,Red understood very well that,at times,action is everything,and there is death in long speaking.He was noted as a man who never missed his mark;and in the Cimarron country,which belonged to no state and therefore to no court,extensive and deadly had been his practise,without fear of retribution.
Now,however,his bullet had gone astray.The few words to which he had treated himself as an introduction to the intended deed had proved his undoing.They had been enough to warn Willock of what was coming;and just before Kansas had been called on to witness,that is an instant before Red fired,Willock had sent a bullet through the threatening wrist.The two detonations were almost simultaneous,and Red's roar of pain,as he dropped his weapon,rang out as an accompaniment to the crash of firearms.
The next instant,Willock,with a second shot from his six-shooter,stretched Kansas on the ground;then,rushing forward with reversed weapon,he brought the butt down on Red's head with such force as to deprive him of consciousness.So swift and deadly were his movements,so wild his appearance as,with long locks streaming in the wind and huge black whiskers hiding all but glittering eyes,aquiline nose and a brief space of tough red skin--so much more like a demon than a man,it was no wonder that the child,awakened by the firing,screamed with terror at finding her head pressed to his bosom.
Come!Willock called breathlessly to the prisoner who still stood with his back to the moon,as if horror at what he had just witnessed rendered him as helpless as he had been from sheer terror.Still holding the screaming child,he darted to the ponies that were tied to the projecting logs of the cabin and hastily unfastened two of the fleetest.
Henry Gledware,awakened as from a trance,bounded to his side.Willock helped him to mount,then placed the child the saddle in front of him.
Ride!he urged hoarsely,ride for your life!They ain't no other chance for you and the kid and they ain't no other chance for me.
He leaped upon the second pony.
Which way?faltered Gledware,settling in the saddle and grasping the bridle,but without the other's practised ease.
Follow the moon--I'll ride against the wind--more chance for one of us if we ain't together.Start when I do,for when they hear the horses they'll be out of that door like so many devils turned loose on us.Ride,pardner,ride,and save the kid for God's sake!Now--off we go!
He gave Gledware's pony a vicious cut with his lariat,and drove the spurs into his own broncho.The thunder of hoofs as they plunged in different directions,caused a sudden commotion within the isolated cabin.The door was flung open,and in the light that streamed forth,Willock,looking back,saw dark forms rush out,gather about the prostrate forms of the two brothers,move here and there in indecision,then,by a common impulse,burst into a swinging run for the horses.
As for Gledware,he never once turned his face.Urging on his horse at utmost speed,and clasping the child to his breast,he raced toward the light.The shadow of horse,man and child,at first long and black,lessened to a mere speck,then vanished with the rider beyond the circle of the level world.
