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And thus she lay, outstretched and disheveled, until the sun, slanting across the room, settled its mellow rays upon her. And even though the touch was light and gentle and somehow sympathetic, it awoke her. She rose and hurried to a window. Out in the corral all was quiet. She dropped into a chair and turned her eyes to the east out over the mesa to the distant mountains.
Behind the corral wall, there lay ambushed Billy the Kid and at least five others of his gang. The Kid and his men waited until the victims had gone by. Then a volley was fired. Sheriff Brady, shot in the back, slowly sank down, his knees weakening under him. "My God! My God! My God!" he exclaimed, as he gradually dropped. He had been struck in the back by five balls.
Then Murphy turned and ran around the corner of the corral to a point where he could see the dim outline of the range against the western sky. The next moment his voice rose upon the night air, vibrant, thrilling, "Look! God be good to us, major! It's no lie. The signal-fire's blazing at the peak."
Also he meant to make a scene of the arrival of the sheriff after having received word of the presence of Big Medicine, the outlaw, at the ranch. Rosemary, too, as the daughter of old Dave, must run down to the corral to meet her father. Scattered scenes they were, occurring in widely separated parts of the story.
She saw the crowd which had been looting the store start for the corral. The car stood alone. Without doubt they had stopped it a little way from the street and made a dash on horseback. Polly's eyes shone. She glanced at the sun; it was going down rapidly. It would soon be dusk. She crept cautiously out of the arroyo.
In one place they were so near together that an ox could hardly squeeze through. In a very short time they came to a bunch of willows growing out in the open ground. The little bunch or grove was forty or fifty feet in diameter, and in the center was a spring of water. The center of the clump had been cleared out, making a sort of corral of bushes, enclosing the spring.
But nothing showed that the banks of the stream had been recently frequented nothing announced either the presence or the proximity of the convicts. Towards five in the evening the cart stopped nearly 600 feet from the palisade. A semicircular screen of trees still hid it. It was necessary to reconnoitre the corral, in order to ascertain if it was occupied.
Of a hundred musmons which had been surrounded, more than two-thirds escaped, but at last, thirty of these animals and ten wild goats were gradually driven back towards the corral, the open door of which appearing to offer a means of escape, they rushed in and were prisoners. In short, the result was satisfactory, and the settlers had no reason to complain.
She knew that since coming to the ranch Pat at no time had been outside the corral save in her charge. Also she recalled that only a short hour or two before she had given him sweets and had talked with him. Nor could the horse have strayed out of the inclosure, because she remembered that the gate was latched when she had reached it.
Within the wide paddock, or corral, as these westerners called it, was a small herd of young, thoroughbred horses. From a little stand outside the paling, Mr. and Mrs. Ford were watching the handsome creatures and talking with the grooms that attended them, concerning their good, and possibly, bad qualities.
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