Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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She tried to slip by him and he thrust her back.

"Let me go!" she demanded. "At once!"

"You're not gonna go," he told her flatly. "You'll stay here--with me.
For keeps. Un'erstand?"

"Have you gone crazy?" she asked wildly, her heart fluttering like a
frightened bird in a cage. "Don't you know my father will search the
whole country for me?"

"Too late. We travel south soon as it's dark." He leaned forward and put
a hand on her knee, regardless of the fact that she shrank back quivering
from his touch. "Listen, girl. You been a high-stepper. Yore heels click
mighty loud when they hit the sidewalk. Good enough. Go far as you like.
I never did fancy the kind o' women that lick a man's hand. But you made
one mistake. I'm no doormat, an' nobody alive can wipe their feet on me.
You turned me down cold. You had the ol' man kick me outa my job as
foreman of the ranch. I told him an' you both I'd git even. But I don't
aim to rub it in. I'm gonna give you a chance to be Mrs. Doble. An' when
you marry me you git a man for a husband."

"I'll never marry you! Never! I'd rather be dead in my grave!" she broke
out passionately.

He went to the table, poured himself a drink, and gulped it down. His
laugh was sinister and mirthless.

"Please yorese'f, sweetheart," he jeered. "Only you won't be dead in
yore grave. You'll be keepin' house for Dug Doble. I'm not insistin' on
weddin' bells none. But women have their fancies an' I aim to be kind.
Take 'em or leave 'em."

She broke down and wept, her face in her hands. In her sheltered life she
had known only decent, clean-minded people. She did not know how to cope
with a man like this. The fear of him rose in her throat and choked her.
This dreadful thing he threatened could not be, she told herself. God
would not permit it. He would send her father or Dave Sanders or Bob Hart
to rescue her. And yet--when she looked at the man, big, gross, dominant,
flushed with drink and his triumph--the faith in her became a weak and
fluid stay for her soul. She collapsed like a child and sobbed.

Her wild alarm annoyed him. He was angered at her uncontrollable shudders
when he drew near. There was a savage desire in him to break through the
defense of her helplessness once for all. But his caution urged delay. He
must give her time to get accustomed to the idea of him. She had sense
enough to see that she must make the best of the business. When the
terror lifted from her mind she would be reasonable.

He repeated again that he was not going to hurt her if she met him
halfway, and to show good faith went out and left her alone.

The man sat down on a chopping-block outside and churned his hatred of
Sanders and Crawford. He spurred himself with drink, under its influence
recalling the injuries they had done him. His rage and passion simmered,
occasionally exploded into raucous curses. Once he strode into the house,
full of furious intent, but the eyes of the girl daunted him. They looked
at him as they might have looked at a tiger padding toward her.

He flung out of the house again, snarling at his own weakness. There was
something in him stronger than passion, stronger than his reckless will,
that would not let him lay a hand on her in the light of day. His
bloodshot eyes looked for the sun. In a few hours now it would be dark.

While he lounged sullenly on the chopping-block, shoulders and head
sunken, a sound brought him to alert attention. A horseman was galloping
down the slope on the other side of the valley.

Doble eased his guns to make sure of them. Intently he watched the
approaching figure. He recognized the horse, Chiquito, and then, with an
oath, the rider. His eyes gleamed with evil joy. At last! At last he and
Dave Sanders would settle accounts. One of them would be carried out of
the valley feet first.

Sanders leaped to the ground at the same instant that he pulled Chiquito
up. The horse was between him and his enemy.

The eyes of the men crossed in a long, level look.

"Where's Joyce Crawford?" asked Dave.

"That yore business?" Doble added to his retort the insult unmentionable.

"I'm makin' it mine. What have you done with her?" The speech of the
younger man took on again the intonation of earlier days. "I'm here to
find out."

A swish of skirts, a soft patter of feet, and Joyce was beside her
friend, clinging to him, weeping in his arms.

Doble moved round in a wide circumference. When shooting began he did not
want his foe to have the protection of the horse's body. Not even for the
beat of a lid did the eyes of either man lift from the other.

"Go back to the house, Joyce," said Dave evenly. "I want to talk with
this man alone."

The girl clung the tighter to him. "No, Dave, no! It's been ... awful."

The outlaw drew his long-barreled six-shooter, still circling the group.
He could not fire without running a risk of hitting Joyce.

"Hidin' behind a woman, are you?" he taunted, and again flung the epithet
men will not tolerate.

At any moment he might fire. Dave caught the wrists of the girl, dragged
them down from his neck, and flung her roughly from him to the ground. He
pulled out his little bulldog.

Doble fired and Dave fell. The outlaw moved cautiously closer, exultant
at his marksmanship. His enemy lay still, the pistol in his hand.
Apparently Sanders had been killed at the first shot.

"Come to git me with that popgun, did you? Hmp! Fat chance." The bad man
fired again, still approaching very carefully.

Round the corner of the house a man had come. He spoke quickly. "Turn
yore gun this way, Dug."

It was Shorty. His revolver flashed at the same instant. Doble staggered,
steadied himself, and fired.

The forty-fives roared. Yellow flames and smoke spurted. The bulldog
barked. Dave's parlor toy had come into action.

Out of the battle Shorty and Sanders came erect and uninjured. Doble
was lying on the ground, his revolver smoking a foot or two from the
twitching, outstretched hand.

The outlaw was dead before Shorty turned him over. A bullet had passed
through the heart. Another had struck him on the temple, a third in the
chest.

"We got him good," said Shorty. "It was comin' to him. I reckon you don't
know that he fired the chaparral on purpose. Wanted to wipe out the
Jackpot, I s'pose. Yes, Dug sure had it comin' to him."

Dave said nothing. He looked down at the man, eyes hard as jade, jaw
clamped tight. He knew that but for Shorty's arrival he would probably be
lying there himself.

"I was aimin' to shoot it out with him before I heard of this last
scullduggery. Soon as the kid woke me I hustled up my intentions." The
bad man looked at Dave's weapon with the flicker of a smile on his face.
"He called it a popgun. I took notice it was a right busy li'l'
plaything. But you got yore nerve all right. I'd say you hadn't a chance
in a thousand. You played yore hand fine, keelin' over so's he'd come
clost enough for you to get a crack at him. At that, he'd maybe 'a' got
you if I hadn't drapped in."

"Yes," said Sanders.

He walked across to the corral fence, where Joyce sat huddled against the
lower bars.

She lifted her head and looked at him from wan eyes out of which the life
had been stricken. They stared at him in dumb, amazed questioning.

Dave lifted her from the ground.

"I... I thought you... were dead," she whispered.

"Not even powder-burnt. His six-shooter outranged mine. I was trying to
get him closer."

"Is he...?"

"Yes. He'll never trouble any of us again."

She shuddered in his arms.

Dave ached for her in every tortured nerve. He did not know, and it was
not his place to ask, what price she had had to pay.

Presently she told him, not in words, without knowing what he was
suffering for her. A ghost of a smile touched her eyes.

"I knew you would come. It's all right now."

His heart leaped. "Yes, it's all right, Joyce."

She recurred to her fears for him. "You're not ... hiding any wounds from
me? I saw you fall and lie there while he shot at you."

"He never touched me."

She disengaged herself from his arms and looked at him, wan, haggard,
unshaven, eyes sunken, a tattered wretch scarred with burns.

"What have you done to yourself?" she asked, astonished at his
appearance.

"Souvenirs of the fire," he told her. "They'll wash and wear off. Don't
suppose I look exactly pretty."

He had never looked so handsome in her eyes.

CHAPTER XLV

JOYCE MAKES PIES

Juan Otero carried the news back to Malapi. He had been waiting on the
crest of the hill to see the issue of the adventure and had come forward
when Dave gave him a signal.

Shorty brought Keith in from where he had left the boy in the brush. The
youngster flew into his sister's arms. They wept over each other and she
petted him with caresses and little kisses.

Afterward she made some supper from the supplies Doble had laid in for
his journey south. The men went down to the creek, where they bathed and
washed their wounds. Darkness had not yet fallen when they went to sleep,
all of them exhausted by the strain through which they had passed.

Not until the cold crystal dawn did they awaken. Joyce was the first up.
She had breakfast well under way before she had Keith call the still
sleeping men. With the power of quick recuperation which an outdoor life
had given them, both Shorty and Dave were fit for any exertion again,
though Sanders was still suffering from his burns.

After they had eaten they saddled. Shorty gave them a casual nod of
farewell.

"Tell Applegate to look me up in Mexico if he wants me," he said.

Joyce would not let it go at that. She made him shake hands. He was in
the saddle, and her eyes lifted to his and showered gratitude on him.

"We'll never forget you--never," she promised. "And we do so hope you'll
be prosperous and happy."

He grinned down at her sheepishly. "Same to you, Miss," he said; and
added, with a flash of audacity, "To you and Dave both."

He headed south, the others north.

From the hilltop Dave looked back at the squat figure steadily
diminishing with distance. Shorty was moving toward Mexico, unhasting and
with a certain sureness of purpose characteristic of him.

Joyce smiled. It was the first signal of unquenchable youth she had
flashed since she had been trapped into this terrible adventure. "I
believe you admire him, Dave," she mocked. "You're just as grateful to
him as I am, but you won't admit it. He's not a bad man at all, really."

"He's a good man gone bad. But I'll say this for Shorty. He's some _man_.
He'll do to ride the river with."

"Yes."

"At the fire he was the best fighter in my gang--saved one of the boys
at the risk of his own life. Shorty's no quitter."

She shut her teeth on a little wave of emotion. Then, "I'm awful sorry
for him," she said.

He nodded appreciation of her feeling. "I know, but you don't need to
worry any. He'll not worry about himself. He's sufficient, and he'll get
along."

They put their horses to the trail again.

Crawford met them some miles nearer town. He had been unable to wait for
their arrival. Neither he nor the children could restrain their emotion
at sight of each other. Dave felt they might like to be alone and he left
the party, to ride across to the tendejon with Bonita's bulldog revolver.

That young woman met him in front of the house. She was eager for news.
Sanders told her what had taken place. They spoke in her tongue.

"And Juan--is it all right about him?" she asked.

"Juan has wiped the slate clean. Mr. Crawford wants to know when Bonita
is to be married. He has a wedding present for her."

She was all happy smiles when he left her.

Late that afternoon Bob Hart reached town. He and Dave were alone in the
Jackpot offices when the latter forced himself to open a subject that had
always been closed between them. Sanders came to it reluctantly. No man
had ever found a truer friend than he in Bob Hart. The thing he was going
to do seemed almost like a stab in the back.

"How about you and Joyce, Bob?" he asked abruptly.

The eyes of the two met and held. "What about us, Dave?"

"It's like this," Sanders said, flushed and embarrassed. "You were here
first. You're entitled to first chance. I meant to keep out of it, but
things have come up in spite of me. I want to do whatever seems right to
you. My idea is to go away till--till you've settled how you stand with
her. Is that fair?"

Bob smiled, ruefully. "Fair enough, old-timer. But no need of it. I never
had a chance with Joyce, not a dead man's look-in. Found that out before
ever you came home. The field's clear far as I'm concerned. Hop to it an'
try yore luck."

Dave took his advice, within the hour. He found Joyce at home in the
kitchen. She was making pies energetically. The sleeves of her dress were
rolled up to the elbows and there was a dab of flour on her temple where
she had brushed back a rebellious wisp of hair.

She blushed prettily at sight of her caller. "I didn't know it was you
when I called to come in. Thought it was Keith playing a trick on me."

Both of them were embarrassed. She did not know what to do with him in
the kitchen and he did not know what to do with himself. The girl was
acutely conscious that yesterday she had flung herself into his arms
without shame.

"I'll go right on with my pies if you don't mind," she said. "I can talk
while I work."

"Yes."

But neither of them talked. She rolled pie-crust while the silence grew
significant.

"Are your burns still painful?" she asked at last, to make talk.

"Yes--no. Beg pardon, I--I was thinking of something else."

Joyce flashed one swift look at him. She knew that an emotional crisis
was upon her. He was going to brush aside the barriers between them. Her
pulses began to beat fast. There was the crash of music in her blood.

"I've got to tell you, Joyce," he said abruptly. "It's been a fight for
me ever since I came home. I love you. I think I always have--even when
I was in prison."

She waited, the eyes in her lovely, flushed face shining.

"I had no right to think of you then," he went on. "I kept away from you.
I crushed down hope. I nursed my bitterness to prove to me there could
never be anything between us. Then Miller confessed and--and we took our
walk over the hills. After that the sun shone. I came out from the mists
where I had been living."

"I'm glad," she said in a low voice. "But Miller's confession made no
difference in my thought of you. I didn't need that to know you."

"But I couldn't come to you even then. I knew how Bob Hart felt, and
after all he'd done for me it was fair he should have first chance."

She looked at him, smiling shyly. "You're very generous."

"No. I thought you cared for him. It seemed to me any woman must. There
aren't many men like Bob."

"Not many," she agreed. "But I couldn't love Bob because"--her steadfast
eyes met his bravely--"because of another man. Always have loved him,
ever since that night years ago when he saved my father's life. Do you
really truly love me, Dave?"

"God knows I do," he said, almost in a whisper.

"I'm glad--oh, awf'ly glad." She gave him her hands, tears in her soft
brown eyes. "Because I've been waiting for you so long. I didn't know
whether you ever were coming to me."

Crawford found them there ten minutes later. He was looking for Joyce to
find him a collar-button that was missing.

"Dawggone my hide!" he fumed, and stopped abruptly, the collar-button
forgotten.

Joyce flew out of Dave's arms into her father's.

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I'm so happy," she whispered from the depths of his
shoulder.

The cattleman looked at Dave, and his rough face worked. "Boy, you're
in luck. Be good to her, or I'll skin you alive." He added, by way of
softening this useless threat, "I'd rather it was you than anybody on
earth, Dave."

The young man looked at her, his Joy-in-life, the woman who had brought
him back to youth and happiness, and he answered with a surge of emotion:

"I'll sure try."

THE END

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