Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
There was no resentment in the tone. Barger looked at him curiously. "What for did you pull me out?" "Don't know," Van confessed. "Perhaps I hated to have the quicksand cheat the pen." "Must have had some good reason," agreed the prostrate man. He was silent for a moment, and then he added: "I s'pose I'm your meat." As before, Van nodded: "I reckon you are." Barger spat.
Matt Barger and three others of the convicts, still uncaptured, had pillaged a freight team, of horses, provisions, and arms, murdered a stage driver, robbed the express of a large consignment of gold, and escaped as before to the mountains. Two separate posses were in pursuit.
To have this menace added, together with worry over every man's personal safety in traveling about, was fairly intolerable. The inefficient posses were roundly berated, but no man volunteered to issue forth and "get" Matt Barger either alive or as a corpse. The man who arrived with the news was one of Van's cronies, Dave, the little station man whom Beth had met the morning of her coming.
A great, moving shadow of Van was projected behind him on the wall. The light gleamed brightly from his gun. But it fell on an inert mass where Barger had fallen to the earth. He did not move, and Van, mechanically igniting the candle's wick, while he eyed the man before him, beheld dry blood, and some that was fresh, on the haggard face, on the tattered clothing, and even on one loose hand.
The fellow's attitude, as he held his hands above his head, and continued to sink, was a terrible pose of supplication an awful eloquence of prayer. Van threw and the cast fell short. Barger groaned. He had ceased to yell. He remained mutely holding up his hands, while the cold abyss crept upward to his waist the wet lips swallowing, swallowing in silence.
You belong to me. Whenever I call for the joker, Matt, I want you to come." He would never call, and he knew it. He merely left the matter thus to establish a species of ownership that Barger must acknowledge. There is law of the State, and law of God, and law of man to man. The latter it was that concerned Van Buren now, and upon it he was acting. Laboriously, weakly, Barger arose to his feet.
He waved his hand loosely at the boots that lay upon the ground, went at once to his horse, and mounted to his seat. "The regular ford of this river's down below," he added to the speechless convict, standing there gaunt and wondering upon the marge. "So long." Barger said nothing. Van rode away on the trail by the stream, and was presently gone, around the bend.
Up through the narrowing walls of sand and adamant they slowly ascended. Barger saw them once, far down the trail, then lost them again as they rounded a spur of the shimmering hillside, coming nearer where he lay. He was up the slope a considerable distance farther than he meant to risk a shot. His breath came hard as he presently beheld Van Buren fairly entering the trap.
He could scarcely credit a thing so utterly despicable, so murderous, to her, yet for what earthly reasons had she sent him on the trip with a letter the stage could have carried? The thing was preposterous! No woman on earth could have sanctioned an alliance with Barger. But what of Bostwick the man who had spent a portion of his time with the liberated convicts?
There was nothing cowardly in Barger, despite his ways. "I nearly got you, up yonder," he said, and he jerked his thumb towards the mountains, to indicate the pass where he and Van had met an hour before. Van nodded. "You sure did. Who told you to look for me here?" Barger closed his eyes. "Nothing doing." He could not have been forced to tell. Van smiled. "That's all right."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking