United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He knew that it was Billinger, and stood up in his stirrups so that the other would see him. Half a mile away the agent stopped and Philip could see him signaling frantically with both arms. Five minutes later Philip rode up to him. Billinger's horse was half-winded, and in Billinger's face there were tense lines of excitement.
"Lord, if I had Billinger's gun now!" groaned Philip. At the sound of his voice and the pressure of his heels in her flank the mare vaulted over the animal in their path. The clatter of pursuing hoofs stopped the runner for an instant, and in that same instant Philip halted and rose in his stirrups to fire.
Every fighting fiber in his body was tingling for action, and at the responsive glare which he met in Billinger's eyes he thrust his hand half over the space that separated them. "We'll get 'em, Billinger," he cried. "By God, we'll get 'em!" There was something ferocious in the crush of the other's hand.
Billinger's yellow-mustached face, pallid and twisted with pain, looked over them as Philip galloped across the open and sprang out of his saddle. With a terrible grimace he raised himself to his knees, anticipating the question on Philip's lips. "Nothing very bad, Steele," he said. "One of the cusses pinked me through the leg, and broke it, I guess. Painful, but not killing. Now look at that!"
Billinger, with his broken leg, his magnificent courage, his With a wild cry Philip jerked himself free. Good God, it was not Billinger! It was Isobel! She had slipped from the saddle he saw her as she tottered a few steps among the rocks and then sank down among them. With his pistol still in his hand he ran back to where Billinger's horse was standing.
It was Billinger he was thinking of now. The agent had fired three shots. There had followed other shots, not Billinger's, and after that his carbine had remained silent. Billinger was among the poplars. He was hurt or dead. A well-worn trail, beaten down by transient rangerss big revolver showing over his horse's ears.
The Englishman was hatless. His sandy hair was cropped short, and his mustaches floated out like flexible horns from the sides of his face. His shirt was in tatters. In one place it was ripped clean of the shoulder and Philip saw a purplish bruise where the flesh was bare. He knew these for the marks of Billinger's presence at the wreck. Now the man was equipped for other business.
A hundred paces and the timber gave place to a sandy dip, in the center of which was the water hole. The dip was not more than an acre in extent. Up to his knees in the hole was Billinger's riderless horse, and a little way up the sand was Billinger, doubled over on his hands and knees beside two black objects that Philip knew were men, stretched out like the dead back at the wreck.
From beyond the hill there came a sound that made him break off with a sudden, quick breath. It was the sharp, stinging report of Billinger's carbine! Once, twice, three times and then there followed more distant shots! "He's come up with them!" he cried. The fury of fight, of desire for vengeance, blazed anew in his face. There was pain in the grip of his arm about the girl.
His bridle reins hung loosely over the pommel. He made no effort to guide his horse, which followed after Billinger's. It was Billinger who brought him back to himself. The agent waited for them, and when he swung over in one stirrup to look at the girl it was the animal ferocity in his face, and not his words, that aroused Philip.
Word Of The Day