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He heard the crunch of the snow underfoot; he heard the panting and snorting of the horses; he felt the swing and jolt of the saddle beneath him; he saw the grim faces of the long-riders, and he said: "The law has taken me." Thereafter he let his will lapse, and surrendered to the sleepy numbness which assailed his brain in waves.
They was called long-riders, I guess, partly because they was in the saddle all the time, and partly because they done their jobs so far apart. They'd ride into Eldara and blow up the safe in the bank one day, for instance, and five days later they'd be two hundred and fifty miles away stoppin' a train at Lewis Station.
Many a time his eyes opened, and he saw nothing, but when he did see and hear it was by vague glimpses. He heard the crying crunch of the snow underfoot; he heard the panting and snorting of the horses; he felt the swing and jolt of the saddle beneath him; he saw the grim faces of the long-riders, and he said: "The law has taken me."
The marshals have us by the throat. In the old days a sheriff that outlived his term was probably crooked and runnin' hand in hand with the long-riders." "Long-riders?" queried Bard. "Fellers that got tired of workin' and took to ridin' for their livin'. Mostly they worked in little gangs of five and six.
They came last in this crew, but among a thousand other long-riders they would have ridden first, either red-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch, stout-handed, blunt of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammered red iron at the forge. Each of them should have ridden alone in order to be properly appreciated.
It's all in that name Pierre." "There's nothing in it, Pierre, that I don't love." His head was bowed as if with the weight of the words which he foresaw. "You have heard of the wild men of the mountains, and the long-riders?" He knew that she nodded, though she could not speak. "I am Red Pierre." "You!" "Yes." Yet he had the courage to raise his head and watch her shrink with horror.
They came last in this crew, but among a thousand other long-riders they would have ridden first, either red-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch, stout-handed, blunt of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammered red iron at the forge. Each of them should have ridden alone in order to be properly appreciated.
"You have heard of the wild men of the mountains, and the long-riders?" He knew that she nodded, though she could not speak. "I am Red Pierre." "You!" "Yes." Yet he had the courage to raise his head and watch her shrink with horror. It was only an instant. Then she was beside him again, and one arm around him, while she turned her head and glanced fearfully back at the lighted schoolhouse.
It was a very little thing to bring in an armful of that wood, but long-riders do not love work, and now they started the matching seriously. The odd man was out, and Pierre went out on the first toss of the coins. "You see," said Gandil. "Bad luck to every one but himself." At the next throw Jacqueline was the lucky one, and her father afterward.
It was his hand now which shook the knob of the door, and she turned with a sob of despair to face the new danger. In her wildest dreams she had never visioned Buck Daniels transformed like this. She knew that in his past, as one of those long-riders who roam the mountain-desert, their hand against the hands of every man, Buck Daniels had been known and feared by the strongest.
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