I heard him
cuss an' I emptied my gun after him."
"The rest was a-passing the word along to ride in when I left the line,"
remarked one of the other punchers. "How you feeling now, Johnny?"
CHAPTER XVI
THE END OF THE TRAIL
The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly
saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep sides of
the arroyo, to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom,
foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend
in the arroyo, where the angry water flung itself against the ragged
bulwark of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman
appeared bending low in the saddle for better protection against
the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank,
opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and
jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked
about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down
the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could
delay his pursuers for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired
horse, he would have more than an even chance.
But they had gained more than he knew. Suddenly above him on the top of
the steep bluff across the torrent a man loomed up against the clouds,
peered intently into the arroyo, and then waved his sombrero to an
unseen companion.
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