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He slapped Sassoon's pony viciously with his hand, yelled loud in answer to Lefever, and before the startled girl could collect herself, de Spain, crouching in his saddle, as a fusillade cracked from Lefever's and Scott's revolvers, urged Sassoon's horse around Nan's, kicked it violently, spurred past her himself, and was away.
Whether these were Sassoon's heels or another's, Lefever decided they constituted his clew, and, running out of the front door, he sprang into his saddle and rode to where he could signal de Spain and Scott to come up. He told his story as they joined him, and the three returned to the inn. Scott rode directly to the rear.
"Yet," said de Spain finally, "before morning we must be a long way from this particular spot, Nan. Lefever is down there I haven't the slightest doubt of that. Sassoon has posted men at the neck of the Gap that's the first thing he would do. And if John heard my rifle when I first shot, he would be for breaking in here, and his men, if they've come up, would bump into Sassoon's.
"Sassoon's fight is our fight," interrupted Morgan. "I advise you," said de Spain once more, looking with the words at Sandusky and his crony, "to keep out of it." "Sandusky," yelled Logan to his partner, "he advises me and you to keep out of this fight," he shrilly laughed. "Sure," assented Sandusky, but with no variation in tone and his eyes on de Spain.
He averred he had seen the blood-stained Santa Fe saddle that had been taken off the horse when the horse was found at daybreak of the day following the fight, waiting at Sassoon's corral to be cared for. There could be, it was fairly well ascertained, no mistake about the horse: the man knew the animal; but his information threw no light on the fate of its missing rider.
As they approached Sassoon's place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up his horse and sat a moment studying the trail and casting an occasional glance in the direction of the ranch-house, which lay under the brow of a hill ahead. When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Elpaso was reading in the roadway.
The strategy of their halt and their firing was not hard to penetrate. The men from the foot-hills were still riding for the canyon. No views were exchanged among Sassoon's captors, but all understood that this move must be stopped. Lefever and Scott, without words, merely left the problem to de Spain as the leader.
Farther up the Gap, horsemen, stirred by the firing, were riding rapidly down toward Sassoon's ranch-house. But the black thing in the sunshine lay quite still. Lefever, chafing in the aspen grove under the restraint of waiting in the storm, was ready long before daylight to break orders and ride in to find de Spain.
He got cut off once from Whispering Smith and Kennedy after a scrimmage outside Williams Cache two years ago." "You don't believe, then, he's dead, Bob?" demanded Jeffries impatiently. "Not till I see him dead," persisted Scott unmoved. De Spain, when he climbed into Sassoon's saddle, was losing sight and consciousness.
We'll try Sassoon's ranch-house for news, if they don't open on us with rifles before we get there." In the sunshine a man in shirt sleeves, and leaning against the jamb, stood in the open doorway of Sassoon's shack, watching the invaders as they rode around the hill and gingerly approached. Lefever recognized Satt Morgan. He flung a greeting to him from the saddle.
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