University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
A GALLOP OF THREE.

We were off, we Three on our Gallop to save
and to slay.

Pumps and Fulano took fire at once. They
were ready to burst into their top speed, and go
off in a frenzy.

“Steady, steady,” cried Brent. “Now we 'll
keep this long easy lope for a while, and I 'll tell
you my plan.

“They have gone to the southward, — those
two men. They could not get away in any other
direction. I have heard Murker say he knows
all the country between here and the Arkansaw.
Thank Heaven! so do I, foot by foot.”

I recalled the sound of galloping hoofs I had
heard in the night to the southward.

“I heard them, then,” said I, “in my watch
after Fulano's lariat was cut. The wind lulled,
and there came a sound of horses, and another
sound, which I then thought a fevered fancy of
my own, a far-away scream of a woman.”

Brent had been quite unimpassioned in his

manner until now. He groaned, as I spoke of
the scream.

“O Wade! O Richard!” he said, “why did
you not know the voice? It was she. They
have terrible hours the start.”

He was silent a moment, looking sternly forward.
Then he began again, and as he spoke, his
iron gray edged on with a looser rein.

“It is well you heard them; it makes their
course unmistakable. We know we are on their
track. Seven or eight full hours! It is long
odds of a start. But they are not mounted as
we are mounted. They did not ride as we shall
ride. They had a woman to carry, and their
mules to drive. They will fear pursuit, and push
on without stopping. But we shall catch them;
we shall catch them before night, so help us
God!”

“You are aiming for the mountains?” I
asked.

“For Luggernel Alley,” he said.

I remembered how, in our very first interview,
a thousand miles away at the Fulano mine, he
had spoken of this spot. All the conversation
then, all the talk about my horse, came back to
me like a Delphic prophecy suddenly fulfilled.
I made a good omen of this remembrance.

“For Luggernel Alley,” said Brent. “Do
you recollect my pointing out a notch in the

Sierra, yesterday, when I said I would like to
spend a honeymoon there, if I could find a
woman brave enough for this plains' life?”

He grew very white as he spoke, and again
Pumps led off by a neck, we ranging up instantly.

“They will make for the Luggernel Springs.
The Alley is the only gate through the mountains
towards the Arkansaw. If they can get
by there, they are safe. They can strike off
New Mexico way; or keep on to the States out
of the line of emigration or any Mormon pursuit.
The Springs are the only water to be had at this
season, without digging, anywhere in that quarter.
They must go there. We are no farther
from the spot than we were at Bridger. We
have been travelling along the base of the triangle.
We have only lost time. And, now that
we are fairly under way, I think we might shake
out another reef. A little faster, friends, — a
little faster yet!”

It was a vast desert level where we were
riding. Here and there a scanty tuft of grass
appeared, to prove that Nature had tried her
benign experiment, and wafted seeds hither to
let the scene be verdant, if it would. Nature
had failed. The land refused any mantle over
its brown desolation. The soil was disintegrated,
igneous rock, fine and well beaten down as the
most thoroughly laid Macadam.

Behind was the rolling region where the Great
Trail passes; before and far away, the faint blue
of the Sierra. Not a bird sang in the hot noon;
not a cricket chirped. No sound except the beat
of our horses' hoofs on the pavement. We rode
side by side, taking our strides together. It was
a waiting race. The horses travelled easily.
They learned, as a horse with a self-possessed
rider will, that they were not to waste strength
in rushes. “Spend, but waste not,” — not a step,
not a breath, in that gallop for life! This must
be our motto.

We three rode abreast over the sere brown
plain on our gallop to save and to slay.

Far — ah, how terribly dim and distant! — was
the Sierra, a slowly lifting cloud. Slowly, slowly
they lifted, those gracious heights, while we sped
over the harsh levels of the desert. Harsh levels,
abandoned or unvisited by verdancy. But
better so; there was no long herbage to check
our great pace over the smooth race-course; no
thickets here to baffle us; no forests to mislead.

We galloped abreast, — Armstrong at the right.
His weird, gaunt white held his own with the
best of us. No whip, no spur, for that deathly
creature. He went as if his master's purpose
were stirring him through and through. That
stern intent made his sinews steel, and put an
agony of power into every stride. The man never

stirred, save sometimes to put a hand to that
bloody blanket bandage across his head and temple.
He had told his story, he had spoken his
errand, he breathed not a word; but with his
lean, pallid face set hard, his gentle blue eyes
scourged of their kindliness, and fixed upon those
distant mountains where his vengeance lay, he
rode on like a relentless fate.

Next in the line I galloped. O my glorious
black! The great, killing pace seemed mere
playful canter to him, — such as one might ride
beside a timid girl, thrilling with her first free
dash over a flowery common, or a golden beach
between sea and shore. But from time to time
he surged a little forward with his great shoulders,
and gave a mighty writhe of his body, while
his hind legs came lifting his flanks under me, and
telling of the giant reserve of speed and power
he kept easily controlled. Then his ear would
go back, and his large brown eye, with its purple-black
pupil, would look round at my bridle hand
and then into my eye, saying as well as words
could have said it, “This is mere sport, my
friend and master. You do not know me. I
have stuff in me that you do not dream. Say
the word, and I can double this, treble it. Say
the word! let me show you how I can spurn the
earth.” Then, with the lightest love pressure
on the snaffle, I would say, “Not yet! not yet!

Patience, my noble friend! Your time will
come.”

At the left rode Brent, our leader. He knew
the region; he made the plan; he had the hope;
his was the ruling passion, — stronger than brotherhood,
than revenge. Love made him leader
of that galloping three. His iron-gray went
grandly, with white mane flapping the air like
a signal-flag of reprieve. Eager hope and kindling
purpose made the rider's face more beautiful
than ever. He seemed to behold Sidney's
motto written on the golden haze before him,
“Viam aut inveniam aut faciam.” I felt my
heart grow great, when I looked at his calm features,
and caught his assuring smile, — a gay
smile but for the dark, fateful resolve beneath it.
And when he launched some stirring word of
cheer, and shook another ten of seconds out of
the gray's mile, even Armstrong's countenance
grew less deathly, as he turned to our leader in
silent response. Brent looked a fit chieftain for
such a wild charge over the desert waste, with
his buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins with flaring
fringes, his otter cap and eagle's plume, his
bronzed face, with its close, brown beard, his
elate head, and his seat like a centaur.

So we galloped three abreast, neck and neck,
hoof with hoof, steadily quickening our pace over
the sere width of desert. We must make the

most of the levels. Rougher work, cruel obstacles
were before. All the wild, triumphant music
I had ever heard came and sang in my ears
to the flinging cadence of the resonant feet,
tramping on hollow arches of the volcanic rock,
over great, vacant chasms underneath. Sweet
and soft around us melted the hazy air of October,
and its warm, flickering currents shook like
a veil of gauzy gold, between us and the blue
bloom of the mountains far away, but nearing
now and lifting step by step.

On we galloped, the avenger, the friend, the
lover, on our errand, to save and to slay.