"You're the man!" he yelled wrathfully. "You're the yellow Coyote——"

His right hand went to his gun, as there came a crashing report. He staggered back, trying to get out the weapon which had not left his holster. He sank down to his knees, still glaring death at the man above him, still fumbling at his gun. Then he lurched forward on his face.

Rathburn flipped his smoking pistol so that its barrel landed in his hand. Then he tendered it, butt foremost, to Sheriff Bob Long. Long took it and threw it on the table, looking first at Rathburn, then at the dead man on the floor. He waved toward the doors and windows.

"You boys can draw back," he ordered.

Mallory stepped to the fallen Doane. The man's face had set in a white cast. He felt his heart.

"He did for him," he said, rising.

Laura Mallory came walking slowly up to the sheriff. Her face was ghastly after what she had witnessed.

"Sheriff Long," she said in a voice strangely calm, "we heard Eagen"—she shuddered, as she mentioned the name—"ask Roger—ask Mr. Rathburn last night to help with some job that would get them a lot of money. It may be that—that—Fred did plan such a thing. I'm sorry to say it, but Fred had seemed awfully nervous lately, and to-night he came to me and asked me to run away with him—at once. He seemed horribly afraid of something. Anyway, Roger refused to go in with Eagen, and an examination of Fred's books will tell all."

She hesitated. Then she spoke slowly and softly.

"I know why Roger robbed the bank and——"

"Stop, Laura!" cried Rathburn.

"No," said Laura firmly; "you may be going to prison."

He put out one hand in protest.

Turning again to the sheriff she said:

"Roger did go to town last night, intending to give himself up. I knew he was going to do it by the way he looked at me. But to-day he saw me with Mr. Doane, and maybe he's heard things for which there was no warrant. Anyway, I know he thought I—I—was in love with Fred."

"Laura—please!" Rathburn pleaded.

"And to-night," said the girl in triumph, "he heard Fred was cashier of the bank he'd robbed, and he brought the money back because he thought the robbery would hurt Fred and in that way hurt me!"

Rathburn turned appealingly to the sheriff. "Let's go," he urged.

"He robbed that bank because he thought I had betrayed his trust, Sheriff Long!" cried Laura, her eyes shining.

"Are we going, Long?" cried Rathburn in an agony.

The sheriff stepped to the door and called to some of his men who entered and bore the bodies of Doane and Eagen out of the sitting room. Then he took the money sack from the table and indicated to Rathburn to follow him, as he went out of the door. Rathburn went after him quickly, and the girl ran to the porch. Rathburn drew back with a cry, as he reached the porch. Just beyond the steps a horse was lying on its side.

"My—my hoss!" he cried wonderingly.

He leaped down beside the dead beast. Then he saw crimson upon the animal's shoulder, as a little gleam of light came from the door.

"That was why he jumped on the trail. He was hit. He carried me all this way with a bullet in him an' then dropped! One of Long's men shot him."

Rathburn looked about vacantly. Then he sank down and buried his face on the shoulder of the dun, as Sheriff Long turned away. Laura Mallory stepped quickly to the side of the sheriff and touched his arm.

"Is he as bad as you think, sheriff?"

Long scowled at her in the dim light from the door, took out a thick, black cigar, bit the end off savagely, and began to chew it. He walked abruptly out to where some of his men were standing by their horses, and he said something in an undertone. When he returned, Rathburn had taken the saddle and bridle off the dead horse and was throwing the leather on the porch.

"Yours, dad," he called to Mallory; "I wouldn't use 'em again if I could." Then he turned to the sheriff. "All right, Bob."

"Come inside," said Long gruffly.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

TEN MILES' START

When they were in the sitting room the sheriff confronted Rathburn.

"This has been a queer case for me," he said slowly, with an attempt at harshness. "I knew Eagen was up to a lot of dirty work, but I never could fasten anything on him till to-night. I'll get some of the rest of the gang now. Doane showed in his face that he was guilty. Those things don't worry me none. But you are the hardest character I ever had to handle, Rathburn!"

"I don't figure on givin' you any more trouble, sheriff," Rathburn assured him, smiling.

"That's the puzzle of it!" Long exploded. "That puts it up to me. I know you had reason for giving Gomez his, and I know this girl wouldn't lie about the other. But—well, I don't get you a-tall, Rathburn, and that's a fact. Something tells me I've got to give you a chance, and if I knew what tells me this I'd wring its neck!"

He stepped close to Rathburn and looked him straight in the eye.

"Take one of Mallory's horses. He's got some good ones. I give you ten miles in any direction. If you can make it—it's your candy. But remember, Rathburn, I'm going to try to stop you!"

He walked swiftly out of the door, leaving Rathburn staring at the smiling girl.

Laura stepped close to him and nodded. Rathburn shook his head.

"I can't see where I've got the right to give Long any more trouble."

"But he isn't letting you go, Roger. He's putting it up to you, and he means what he says when he declares he'll try to get you."

"If he does, he'll probably get me," mused Rathburn.

"But maybe he won't get us, Roger."

"Us?"

"You and I, Roger. Listen! There's a land 'way up north, Roger. I've read about it. It's past the desert and the mountains and the plains—in another country! And there's a river there, Roger—a river they call Peace River. I've always loved the name. We'll go there, Roger, you and I—and father can come later."

She looked up at him with shining eyes and put her arms about his neck, and she saw the unbelievable wonder in his face. The man trembled. Then he took her and held her and kissed her, time after time.

"Joe Price said I could never be satisfied away from the desert unless I took along something that was of it," he muttered hoarsely; "I wonder——"

"Yes, Roger, he meant me."

"We can't make it," he said softly. "Not the two of us—but Laura, girlie, this is worth the game!"

"Yes we can, Roger," she said eagerly. "Think! We can be married when we've left the desert. It's not quite ten miles to Boxall Canon. We can go up Boxall over the range and cross Death Flat."

"I was thinking of that, sweetheart," he replied. "But no horse can get up Boxall, an' if he did he couldn't get across Death Flat. Few men have crossed that stretch. It's well named. I might try it alone; but you—no, Laura. It just ain't in the pictures!"

"We don't need horses, Roger. You've forgotten the burros. They'll kill any horse on the desert, won't they? We can take two or three loaded with food and water."

"But it's miles and miles an' then some—an' it all looks alike."

"But when we've reached the other side, Roger?"

He drew away from her and stepped to the door. He could not see or hear anything. When he turned and again approached her, his face was white. He looked at Mallory, who was standing with a look of stupefaction on his lined face.

"Wait!" he said and stepped into another room. In a few moments he was back, holding a money belt in his hands. He took out gold and bills and deposited the money on the table.

The others stared.

"There's about six thousand there, Mallory. It's gamblin' money. Turn it in to the bank to make or help out Doane's shortage. I've got just twenty-five hundred left which I earned in a better way."

"Daddy, get the burros!" cried the girl. "We're going!"

* * * * *

Sheriff Bob Long looked down from a ledge above a narrow, deep, boulder-strewn, awe-inspiring canyon and drew in his breath sharply. Below he saw two human beings and three animals.

"I knew he'd try it," Long said wonderingly to himself. "I thought he'd try it afoot. But the girl! And they're going to try to cross Death Flat!"

His look of wonder increased, and he made no move toward the weapons in his holsters.

"I wonder now," he mused. "Can they make it? I wonder——"

He scowled and looked about with a frowning stare. His gaze again shifted downward. Suddenly he shrugged and put the wrong end of his unlighted cigar in his mouth.

"That's the queerest cigar I ever had," he growled, as he made his way to his horse. "It won't stay lit because it wants to be swallowed."

He mounted and rode slowly back toward the far-reaching stretches of desert. Once he halted and turned in his saddle for a backward look.

"He had the makings of the worst bad man this country ever saw," he muttered aloud. "Now, if that woman and another country—but first they've got to get across."

* * * * *

On the western edge of a great, ghastly plain of white, in which a deceiving, distant glow was mirrored in the desert dawn, two figures, a man and a girl, stood hand in hand. Three shaggy burros, heavily laden, stood behind them. The burros saw not the Death Flat ahead, for they were asleep.

And the man and the girl saw not the frightful white, as of powdered skulls, bare, sinister, sunbaked, but a vision of a little house in a fragrant green meadow, with golden fields on either side of a peaceful river, and forests ranging up to distant hills.

THE END



TO THE READER

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