“Thanks. I understand you a little better,” returned Rollie, gray of face.

  “Sterl, I had to rake them, but I reckon now they’ll give a good account of themselves,” said Red, as he watched the three Australians ride away. “Rustle now. Get Friday up an’ hang onto him.”

  Unwilling or not the black had to get up behind Sterl. “Hold those spears low, like that,” shouted Sterl, and he reached around with his right arm to clasp Friday. “Okay, pard, see if you can run away from King.”

  The cowboy led off, and Sterl knew what he had suspected would be a fact — that he and Friday were in for a ride. Another hard downpour, right in their faces, made accurate vision difficult. Red Krehl ran Duke on the open stretches, loped him through the brush, jumped him over logs. Friday had a bear clutch on Sterl, yet the black all but fell off several times. The slapping of wet branches and the crackling of saplings added to the pain and discomfort, if no more. Then Red pulled Duke to a slower gait and headed to the right. They had come into bushland again. Red did not halt until he got to the edge of the timber. The three wagons were in plain sight out upon the open, the first about a mile distant, and the other two farther out, but still separated.

  “Haidin’ almost straight for us,” soliloquized Red.

  Friday fell off from behind Sterl, undoubtedly pretty much mauled. He rubbed his lean wet legs.

  “Tinkit hoss bad!” he remarked.

  Then, straightening up, he took a long look at the three wagons and pointed.

  “Ormiston wagon dere farder. Hoses alonga ‘imm,” he said.

  “Thet hombre last, huh? Come on, Sterl.”

  Red turned back into the bush, somewhat away from the course he decided the first wagon driver would take. The rain lessened again. Perhaps two miles back from the open, Red halted.

  “Far enough, I reckon, pard,” he said, “now...Say, where in the hell did Friday go to?”

  “I never noticed. But he won’t cramp us, Red. Don’t worry.”

  “All I’m worryin’ about is thet he’ll get to Ormiston before I do,” ground out Red. “Hurry. What’s your plan?”

  “I’ll ride back aways. Let the first wagon go by me, onless it should happen to be Ormiston. You wait about heah someplace. An’ when thet wagon comes up introduce yoreself either to Jack or Bedford...Then you better rustle back after me.”

  “You’ll time it to meet that second wagon just about when the first one gets up to me?”

  “I reckon. But it’s all over ‘cept the fireworks.”

  Red rode off under the dripping gums, keeping to the left of the expected wagon line, and soon disappeared in the gray-green bush. Sterl chose as cover some gum saplings, close together and leafy enough to make a comparatively safe hiding place. He dismounted, and drawing his rifle from its saddle sheath removed the oilskin cover and put it in his pocket. Then he leaned the rifle against the largest sapling, and with a quieting hand on King peered back through the drenched bushland.

  With a tense wait like this, it was almost impossible not to think. He had, he reflected, no dislike for this job and no compunction. He would not shoot from ambush, although he had retaliated upon redskins by that very act. But here he wanted to face Jack or Bedford.

  Naturally, however, he had concern for his comrade. Sterl would have preferred to be with Red, for more than one reason. Beryl’s life might be at stake. Because of that, Red could be capable of any rash act, even to a sacrifice of himself. Then again, Sterl wanted powerfully to see Ormiston meet the cowboy.

  King suddenly vibrated slightly and shot up his ears. He had heard something.

  “Quiet!” whispered Sterl, and patted the wet neck. “Want to spoil the party?”

  More moments passed before Sterl’s alert ear caught a creaking of wheels. King threw up his head. He had been well trained, but not to stand still and keep silent. Sterl stepped to his head and held him. A thud of hoofs sounded through the silent bush. At last a sight of four horses plodding along, then a canvas-topped wagon, then a burly driver, reins and whip in hands. It was Jack. A slight cold chill quivered over Sterl. But he thought fast. He would wait until the team had come almost opposite him, then step out, confront Jack and force him to draw.

  A distant gunshot rang out, spiteful, ripping asunder the bushland silence. Red’s .45 Colt speaking. Almost at once a duller heavier shot.

  The drover Jack hauled his four horses to a dead stop, and dropped the reins. He was in the clear, with the wagon on level and bare ground. Sterl saw the man sweep out a hand to grasp a rifle, then peer all around.

  At this instant King let out a loud neigh, and the other horses answered. Jack’s gaze fixed upon King. Quick as thought he leaped out of the wagon. As Sterl plunged to get low down behind a log the drover fired from behind the left front wheel. The bullet whistled closer to King than it did to Sterl. Fearful that Jack might kill the horse, Sterl took a snap shot at the only part of the wheel he could see — the under rim and a section of spokes. His bullet struck with a thud, to spang away into the bush. It must have stung the drover’s foot, or come too close, for he leaped away to the rear end of the wagon. His boots were in plain sight down between the two right wheels. And Sterl’s second shot hit one of them. The drover flopped down like a crippled chicken, bawling frightfully, and crawled behind the only gum tree near. The trunk was not broad enough wholly to protect his body. But he knelt low, risking that. He had Sterl marked but could not see him. Sterl tried a ruse as old as wars. He stuck up his sombrero. Jack fired, once and again. His second shot knocked Sterl’s sombrero flat. Then the drover rashly stood up and stuck his rifle, his shoulder, and half of his head out from behind the tree. Sterl drew a careful bead on the one baleful eye visible, like a hole in a mask, and fired. Jack pitched to one side of the tree and his rifle flew to the other.

  Sterl worked the lever of his rifle, waited a moment, then snatched up his sombrero and leaped on King. The excited horse was hard to hold. Sterl rode by the wagon. A glance at the drover lying on his back, one eye blank and the other set hideously, and Sterl took up the wheel tracks and raced through the bushland.

  It grew more open. In less than half a mile he sighted another wagon, standing still, the foremost team of horses plunging. Sterl drew closer and was pulling King to a slower gait when again he heard gunshots, and not far away. Two revolvers of different caliber! No rifle shot! Throwing caution to the winds he struck the steel into King’s flanks. As the black tore on at top speed, and reached the leading wagon, Sterl saw the drover Bedford hanging head first over the right wheel. His feet had caught somewhere. In the middle of his broad back his gray shirt showed a huge bloody patch. Red had shot him through from front to back.

  The third and last wagon! It had been pulled half broadside across the line of wheel tracks. Horses tethered to the rear were plunging. Even at that distance and through a drizzling rain, Sterl recognized Jester.

  The driver’s seat was vacant. No one in sight! But another shot cracked. The cowboy was alive! Sterl drove King down upon the wagon with tremendous speed.

  Suddenly to Sterl’s right and ahead, he caught the gleam of something white, something red, something black. There was a bare glade close ahead — a huge gum towering over the wagon — a low branch sweeping down. Through the thin foliage that white thing moved. And a woman’s scream, high-pitched, piercing, rent the air.

  Sterl lay back with all his might upon the bridle. King plunged to slide on his haunches into the glade.

  Red, his temple bloody, was lying in the middle of the bare spot, raised on his left elbow, his gun extended, his posture unnatural. In a flash Sterl was out of his saddle.

  The white thing was Beryl Dann, half nude, in the grasp of Ormiston. A black blanket had slipped to her knees. Ormiston crouched behind her, left arm around her middle. In his right he had a gun leveled at Red. As he fired, the girl threw up his arm. She shrieked in terror, in fury. And she fought the drover like a panther. The red thing near them was Leslie’s horse Sorrel, saddled and bridled. Ormiston had tried to get away on that horse.

  “Kill him — Red — Don’t mind me!” panted the girl, wildly.

  CHAPTER 20

  STERL LEVELED A cocked gun, but dared not risk firing. Only a portion of Ormiston’s body projected from behind the desperately struggling girl.

  She hung onto Ormiston’s rigid arm as he lifted her in his effort to align his gun upon Krehl. He fired. Dust and gravel flew up into the cowboy’s face. Red rolled convulsively over and over, as if struck. Sterl just barely held himself back from a rash onslaught at the drover. But Red came out of that roll to lie flat with his gun forward.

  “Hurry, St — erl!” shrieked the girl, frantically.

  Then the drover espied Sterl, and struggled to aim at him. Sterl leaped to dive behind a rock. On his knees he thrust his gun over the top.

  He had time to see Beryl’s last frenzied struggle to destroy the bushranger’s aim. Then she collapsed, arms, head and shoulders hanging down, supported by Ormiston’s clutching clasp. Ormiston’s stooping caused him to bend his left leg, and his knee became exposed. Red’s gun cracked. Sterl heard the bullet thud into flesh. That shot of Red’s had broken his aim. Cursing savagely the bushranger gathered his forces for another attempt.

  Sterl’s finger quivered on the trigger, in the act of imperiling Beryl’s life to save Red’s. Then behind him a strange, tussling sound checking his firing. Whizz! A dark streak flashed across his line of vision, Chuck! Sterl’s taut senses registered the sickening thud of something rending flesh.

  Ormiston uttered a strangling, inhuman yell and sprang up as if galvanized. His gun went flying to the ground. Beryl dropped from his hold like an empty sack. His hands went up, clutching as a drowning man might at straws. An aborigine spear stuck out two feet beyond his throat. Its long end still quivered. Ormiston’s hand tore at it, broke the shaft square off.

  “Friday!” yelled Sterl, as he leaped from behind the rock. “Look, Red, look! Friday has done for him!”

  Red got up, bloody-faced and grim as death. Blood flowed from a shot in his head and his left shoulder. But he showed no weakness. As he strode toward the whirling Ormiston, swift footfalls thudded behind Sterl, and Friday came leaping into the open. He held a long spear low down.

  “Hold on, Friday!” yelled Red, blocking the aborigine. “No go with thet. You’re gonna help me with a little necktie party!”

  Sterl could not turn his sight from the spectacle of the doomed Ormiston. He reeled and swayed like a drunken man, his hands still tearing at the spearhead. A red-tinged froth issued from his mouth. He fell, to bound up again with marvelous vitality. Sterl ran over and kicked Ormiston’s gun into the grass. And again his trigger finger pressed quiveringly as the bushranger made ghastly inarticulate sounds and plunged like a wounded bull.

  Red’s jangling footfalls sounded behind Sterl, just as Ormiston’s protruding eyes fell upon Beryl. She was on her knees trying to pluck up the blanket over her bare shoulders. He made at her, insane to drag even her to perdition. But before Sterl could shoot, a hissing lasso shot out. The noose fell over Ormiston’s head. Red gave the rope a tremendous pull. Ormiston lunged backward, to fall face upward, his arms upflung, and that queer vociferation ended abruptly.

  “Lend a hand, Friday,” shouted the cowboy. “Don’t forget how this white trash treated you!”

  The black leaped to Red’s assistance. They dragged the bushranger under the spreading arm of the huge gum tree. The cowboy paused there to gaze down at his victim.

  “Rustler, you swing! Jest the same as any cattle thief in my country! But bad as they came, I never seen one as low down as you!”

  Red threw the free end of his lasso up over a low branch and caught it as it fell.

  “Git in an’ help me, Friday! Pull, you black man who’s shore no nigger! All my life I’ll love you for this day’s work. Ha! There you air, Ormiston! Swing an’ kick!”

  Sterl wrenched his gaze from the gruesome spectacle and wheeled to Beryl. She was on her knees, the blanket slack in her nerveless hands, her big blue eyes fixed in horror.

  “Beryl! Don’t look!” cried Sterl, sheathing his gun and rushing to her. “Shut your eyes, Beryl. It’s — all over. You’re saved. And he...It’s justice, no matter...”

  But he realized that she had fainted. He carried her to the wagon, laid her in the seat out of the rain and tucked the blanket around her bare feet. Her eyes fluttered open. “Okay now?” inquired Sterl. She nodded, “Then lie here awhile until you get yourself together. No more danger.” And he drew away.

  A jingling step, and he turned to see Red approaching. Beyond, Friday appeared, gazing fixedly up at the limp figure in dark relief against the gray sky.

  “Close shave, pard,” said Red, just a little huskily, as he wiped his bloody hands with his scarf, and glanced up to see Beryl’s pale, quiet face. Sterl indicated by a gesture that the cowboy should leave her alone.

  “Gosh! I don’t recall a closer shave!” ejaculated Red. “But wasn’t Beryl the game kid? She kept him from borin’ me a second time. She fainted! I’m glad she didn’t see the end of it.”

  “But she did, Red. She did! She saw it all, believe me!”

  “Aw, thet’s too bad. But, pard, did you get it? Beryl had on only her nightgown. Thet hombre stole her from her bed. She didn’t run off with him!”

  “Yes, I savvied that, Red, and I never was any gladder in my life... But you’re all shot up. Let me see!”

  “They’d have to be a hell of a lot wuss than they air to croak me now. Let me tell you. When I ran down on Bedford he saw me comin’, an’ he was ready for me. I bored him, but damn if he didn’t hit me heah in this shoulder. Ormiston was trying to get away with Beryl on the sorrel there when I run in on him. Beryl was fightin’ him. But for her I’d shore have bored him before he got in thet first shot. It knocked me flat. Better look these bullet holes over an’ tie them up. This one on my haid hurts like hell.”

  Examination disclosed in Red’s head a groove that cut through the scalp, but had not touched the skull, and another in his left shoulder, high up. The bullet had lodged just under the skin on the far side. It would have to be cut out, but Sterl left that operation for camp, and bound his scarf tightly around the wound.

  “We’d better leave the other one open,” he said. “Hello, what’s that?”

  Red rose up to listen. “Fag end of a stampede, I’d say. Look out for Beryl. I’ll wrangle the horses. Come, Friday.”

  The black ran off under the gums to get Duke, while Sterl drew King and the sorrel back away from the open. A bobbing line of cattle hove in sight down through the brush, loping along wearily.

  “Wal, they might have started wild, but they’re bein’ chased now,” said Red. “Get the rifles heah, pard, an’ if it happens to be any of Ormiston’s outfit, they’ll never get nowhere.”

  On a front so wide that Sterl could just make out the far end, a herd of cattle came loping past, scattered and bawling, almost ready to drop.

  “Coupla thousand haid, shore as you’re born,” said Red when they had passed. “Thet’s sort of queer. I recognized that bull. Pard, thet was the bunch raided out of Dann’s last night!”

  “Might be.”

  “Heah comes some riders. Two! Thet’s Larry’s hoss. An’ Rollie too. But Drake ain’t with them.”

  From some hundred paces away the riders espied the bushranger swinging with horrible significance, and this brought them to a quick halt. Then they rode slowly up, their eyes gleaming, their lips tight.

  “Beryl?” queried Larry, hopefully.

  “She’s up theah, on the seat, comin’ out of a daid faint.”

  Larry slumped out of his saddle to sit down like a man whose legs were wobbly. Sterl did not like the look of either of the drovers.

  “Where’s Drake?”

  “He wouldn’t shoot barefaced from ambush,” replied Larry, tragically. “Rol and I didn’t know it though, till right at the last, he ran out, yelled at Anderson and Henley. They drew their revolvers and he shot them both off their horses. I — I killed Buckley. Herdman and Smith had begun to shoot. It was Herdman, I think, who hit Drake and did for him. Rol’s horse was shot from under him. The mob rushed, ran us back into the brush. Herdman and Smith had to ride hard. But they got around them and headed off to the east. We couldn’t chase them until the cattle had run by. Then it was too late.”

  “Ahuh. Too bad about Drake. Air you shore he was daid?”

  “There was no doubt of that.”

  “It’s orful tough, Larry. I reckon Sterl an’ me feel for you. But the fact is, we got off lucky.”

  “Jack and — Bedford?”

  “They beat Ormiston to hell pretty considerable.”

  “There’s only one thing to do now,” said Sterl. “Take Beryl back to camp pronto. You’re all shot up, too. We’ve got to cross that infernal river before dark.”

  Stanley Dann, the Slyters, with Heald and Monkton, and one of Dann’s drovers stood on the east bank, awaited their landing, visibly laboring under extreme excitement and fear.

  “My — daughter?” asked Dann, almost voiceless.

  “Safe,” replied Sterl, not looking at him, and leaped to the ground. He waved his sombrero to Red and Larry. Then as they waded in, Sterl untied his lasso.

  “Get your rope ready,” he said to Rollie.

  Sterl had been aware of Leslie’s presence close beside him and a little behind. One she touched him with a timid hand, as though to see if he were really back in the flesh. They were all talking except Leslie. Finally she spoke in her deep contralto: “Sterl!...Sterl!”

  Then he looked around and down upon her, meaning to be kind, trying to smile as he said: “Hello, kid!” but she instinctively recoiled from his face. Sterl did not marvel at that. It had happened before to girls who, approached him after a hard job. But however could he help it? Men had to kill other men! The wonder in him was that it made any difference in his face and look.