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And twice three times he held the handkerchief to his face before he reached the rise in the prairie over which Billinger had disappeared. The agent had been gone an hour when the trail of the outlaws brought him to the knoll. From the top of it Philip looked over the prairie to the North. A horseman was galloping toward him.
Billinger would be there soon in time to use his carbine at a deadly rate, while he got into closer quarters with his revolver. God bless Billinger and his broken leg! He was filled with the craze of fight now and it found vent in a yell of defiance as he spurred on toward the outlaws. They were not going to run. They were waiting for him.
I don't suppose there's any time to lose " "No," said Philip. "How many are there?" "Four mebby more." Billinger started his horse into a gallop and Philip purposely held his mount behind to look at the other man. The first law of MacGregor's teaching was to study men, and to suspect. It was the first law of the splendid service of which he was a part and so he looked hard at Billinger.
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.
You have paid your debt to M'sieur Janette." Then Philip turned quickly and looked back at Billinger. In his hand the agent held a paper package, which he had torn open. A second and similar package lay in the sand in front of him. "Currency!" he gasped. "It's a part of the money stolen from the express car. The two hundred thousand was done up in five packages, and here are two of 'em.
With a fierce cry he dropped upon his knees and drew away the girl's hair until her lovely face lay revealed to him in terrible pallor and stillness, and as Billinger stood there, tense and staring, he caught that face close to his breast, and began talking to it as though he had gone "Isobel Isobel Isobel " he moaned. "My God, my Isobel "
In the few terrible seconds that followed Philip was conscious of two things that death was very near, and that Billinger was a moment too late. Less than ten paces away the outlaw was deliberately taking aim at him, while his own pistol arm was pinned under the weight of his body.
Blinking, he looked at Billinger, and through the sweat and grime of the other's face he saw the question that was on his own lips. Without a word they spurred down the slope, and after a time Billinger swept to the right and Philip to the left, each with his eyes searching the low prairie grass. The agent saw the thing first, still a hundred yards to his right.
Three or four hundred yards distant lay a thick clump of poplar trees and a thousand yards beyond that the first black escarpments of the Bad Lands. In the space between a horseman was galloping fiercely to the west. It was not Billinger.
As his finger pressed the trigger there came to his ears a thrilling sound from behind him the sharp galloping beat of steel upon rock! Billinger was coming Billinger, with his broken leg and his carbine! He could have shouted for joy as he fired. Once twice, and the outlaw was speeding ahead of him again, unhurt. A third shot and the man stumbled among the rocks and disappeared.
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