CHAPTER XI.

THE STORM STRIKES SILVER BEND.

Morning showed as peaceful a scene at Silver Bend as could have been found in all the long and winding reaches of that tawny river. The sun came up and gilded the silver of the young cottonwood trees. The dogwood was in bloom along with many other shrubs and wild flowers. A hundred mingled scents of sweetness were in the warm, damp air.

A great peace was over the world, but it was the calm before such a storm as Silver Bend had never known in all the more than thirty years that old Railroad Ross had struggled there. The elements that were to battle in that bottle and concoct a mess "unfit for human consumption," as Sankey had said at the outset, were rapidly fermenting for the mixture.

When Cliff returned home he found his father, Lav and Zella waiting together in the judge's bedroom.

"Well, what did you find out?" asked Lav.

"Just what I expected to find; that the young fellow who was here told the truth. There is no doubt that Bell Holderness shot Ben in the back, in order to make us think the Railroad outfit did it, and draw us into the quarrel on the side of the H Bar."

"Did you see Randy?" asked Zella.

"No; I was afraid to see him."

"Afraid!" rumbled the judge. "No Tarleton ever was afraid of any man."

"It wasn't the man I was afraid of. It was the result of what we had done. Lav sent Randy word that we would kill him on sight. I know what I'd do, and you know what you'd do, if a man sent you such a message. I don't want to kill Randy Ross, and I don't want him to kill me. One or the other will happen if he meets any of us before he is satisfied that we have learned the truth and changed our attitude toward him."

"Why, nonsense!" growled the judge. "If this trouble between the Railroad and the H Bar goes on, Randy ought to be glad to have you two boys on his side of the fight."

"That's true enough, but we can't go to him now. Dolly says he's as bitter against us as he is against the H Bar. That we all look alike to him."

"Why, I don't understand that attitude," said the judge.

"I do," declared Zella. "I'm to blame for part of it. You can't go to Randy, but I can. I'll crawl on hands and knees to him and beg him to forget what has happened."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," snapped Lav imperiously. "I've told you to keep out of this. No Tarleton is going to beg anybody to do anything. Go to bed. We'll decide what to do."

Zella went to her room, but not to bed. Gray dawn found her sitting at the window, looking down the river toward Silver Bend, as if she hoped to see Randy and what was happening to him. If she had seen him at that moment, she would have seen him still asleep. At sunrise she did see her two brothers mount and ride away toward Willow Mills.

"Where are the boys going?" she asked her father.

"To hunt Bell Holderness. He is a double traitor. He not only murdered my son, but accepted my hospitality and claimed to be my friend afterward. It would be a disgrace if my sons didn't hunt him down, since I am crippled and can't go myself."

If Lav and Cliff were to shoot it out with Bell that day, they'd have to go much farther than Willow Mills. Indeed, they meant to go farther than that, if they didn't find Bell in his usual haunts.

Quite unintentionally they were putting themselves where they could not help Randy.

Failing to find Bell in the little town, they took the road north toward the H Bar. The river was low, and they took the shallow ford and crossed to the other side, hoping to meet Bell as he came to town.

No man should say they were afraid. They didn't know it, but there was nothing to be afraid of in that neighborhood, unless it were the grim fruit that still hung from a limb over the road.

At daylight, even as Zella sat looking toward Silver Bend, Bell Holderness had left the H Bar with his men. Where they were going, the men didn't know, except that they were not going toward Willow Mills.

* * * * *

Randy and his father finished breakfast and stepped out of the house to start the men on their day's work, when they met Dolly. "Mr. Ross, I got to talk to you and Randy some," Dolly remarked.

"What about?"

"Why, I went to Willow Mills last night, and--"

"Went to Willow Mills!" exclaimed Randy. "Didn't you know it was dangerous for any of our outfit to go there just now?"

"Yes, it was sorty shaky, but I found out something. Bell Holderness has gone back to the H Bar. He's got forty killers there with him. He knows Sam and Steve are dead, and he'll play his last card at once."

"What do you mean by his last card?" demanded Railroad.

"Why, he's got himself where he ain't safe as long as you and Randy are alive. He's desperate, at the last ditch, and he'll come here with his gang and kill you."

"How do you know all this?"

Dolly told him what Alec Thomas had said.

"I know Thomas," said Railroad. "He's a good, square man, and he knows the signs about such outfits as the H Bar. I never thought the Holderness boys would pull a thing like this, though. I knew it was a rough outfit, and I've heard some talk about 'em, but this is too rough."

"They're not the only rough ones," snapped Randy. "If they jump us in front, the Tarleton wing of their dirty outfit will stab us in the back."

"I don't think so," said Dolly.

Randy shot him a sharp glance, but said nothing.

"We'll keep the men all here at the ranch to-day, anyway," said Railroad. "I don't think they'll come across the river in the daytime, but our boys will need to be rested whenever they do come."

"I guess that's right," said Randy, thoughtfully. "No use in them riding the bend. They'll only get shot from the brush. Come on, Dolly. If they come into Silver Bend, they'll cross at the ford below the narrows. We'll go over there and watch."

Old Railroad stood watching them as they rode off. There went his last boy, riding into danger. It was the brave and manly thing to do, but he wished he could have gone himself, instead. Never had he seen such a change in any man as there had been in Randy, but he was too bitter, too venturesome. If the H Bar outfit did come that way, they'd get the boy sure.

"No work to-day, boys," Railroad told them. "Have the boys saddle and have their guns ready and loaded, but don't ride. Dolly says Bell Holderness is apt to come across, and jump us. He's got about forty killers. There's only twenty-two of us, without Dolly and Randy. They've gone to watch the ford. Don't any of the rest of you ride into the bottom. If they're in there, you'll just get shot from the brush, without having a chance. If they jump us here at the ranch, we'll have the advantage. Just get ready for anything that happens, but keep quiet."

Poor old Railroad. He had thought that battles of this sort were long past for him. He felt that this would be the last one if it came. He hoped it wouldn't come, but gamely oiled and loaded his guns. His old heart would beat rapidly for a moment, skip a beat, then slow down for a minute, keeping up an endless cycle of change in its working.

* * * * *

Meantime, Randy and Dolly had ridden on to the river and ensconced themselves in a thicket, where they could watch the ford without being seen. Randy had not spoken since they left the ranch. Now he turned to Dolly and said:

"Where'd you go last night and what for?"

Dolly had been expecting that question, and dreading it. He was going to have to lie, or at least not tell all the truth, and he didn't like that sort of thing. He pulled himself together and plunged into the task.

"Why, I went to Willow Mills, like I told you."

"I know, but why? You didn't take a chance like that just for fun."

"No, I took it for you," and the earnestness of the little puncher's voice rang true. "I talked to that fellow Turk last night, and he told me what Bell would do in a showdown. I knew what we had done to the H Bar. I knew there was nobody but Bell left to ramrod the outfit. I wanted to know if Bell had gone to the H Bar, so I went to the Mills, and found out what I told you."

"All right. I never have caught you in a lie. I'll be sorry if Bell gets killed. I wanted him to marry Zella first."

"Randy, you oughtn't to be so bitter."

"Hell I oughtn't! Didn't she throw me cold? Hasn't Bell been there with her through all this mess? Ain't her brothers hunting me to kill me?"

Dolly wanted to tell him the Tarleton boys were no longer hunting him. He wanted to tell him that Zella was still true to him and suffering intensely for her part in the matter, but he didn't dare. Instead, he said:

"Randy, you're too hard on Miss Zella. I tell you she didn't understand--"

"And I want to tell you that she, or anybody else, will have one hell of a job making me understand that she didn't understand. I'm not a sucker any longer. Thanks to you, I'm a man now. I had to be mighty near killed to make me see sense. I had to lose about everything on earth that I loved, but thank God, the price shan't be paid in vain. I've still got my old daddy and mother, and I still have Silver Bend. It don't make much difference whether I come out of this mess alive or not, but if I do--"

Randy stopped. The thought was too bitter to express. It had to do with what he believed to be the unfaithfulness of Zella, and with his jealousy of Bell Holderness, which he refused to admit. At that moment, he thought there was no feeling in his heart for Zella, except to see her suffer in return for the pain she had given him.

Dolly offered no word. He was thinking again that he had tried to make a man, and made a monster. He had changed Randy from a shrinking boy to a fearless, even a desperate man. A man who could watch the quivering death throes of his enemies without a quiver. A man who could be a terrible enemy, even to a woman.

Looking down the river, as they watched the ford, Dolly was picturing in his mind the great bottle formed by Silver Bend. At the bottom of the bottle, and three miles north of the ranch house, the ground sloped up from the stream to a considerable height and formed a sort of plateau of a hundred yards in extent. There was no timber on it. The soil was loose sand.

In the middle of the plateau was a mound, on which grew an immense mustang grapevine. The vine was old and gnarled, supported by its own twisted stems, and a few stunted trees, it covered as much ground as a large house, and at a distance looked as much like a hay rick as anything else.

Dolly had eaten grapes at that vine many a time, squeezing the pulp from the grape into his mouth, without letting the skin, with its burning acid, touch his lips. He had no thought of any part that grapevine might play in the day's events. It was merely a vagary of his mind that it halted there a moment, in a mental journey from the bottom of the bottle to the ranch house.

The plateau, with its lone grapevine, was the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. To the south of the plateau, the ground sloped down sharply into a strip a quarter of a mile wide, filled with switch-cane and grass, with occasional trees in it. The strip was little higher than the river banks. Railroad Ross called it his winter horse pasture.

There was always green stuff there in the winter. It had not been burned over for several years, and was a mass of dead canes and grass, which protected the greenery under it in the winter. The swale ran across the bend from the river on the west to the river on the east. Beyond that, the ground rose sharply into thick timber that was on high ground and extended on to the prairie valley in which the ranch house stood.

* * * * *

Dolly was trying to picture in his mind what might happen, and where it would most likely happen. He started when Randy said:

"Dolly, you've done a lot for me, but there's one more favor I want to ask. If the Holderness and Tarleton gang does come into Silver Bend, let me have Bell Holderness."

"All right," replied Dolly, absently. "They can come in most anywhere now. I never saw the river any lower. Listen! What's that?"

"Wind," replied Randy. "It's a spring norther. I noticed when it struck awhile ago."

They listened and the roaring increased.

"That ain't wind," said Dolly. "Look at the river!"

A wall of water ten feet high came rolling down the stream and thundered on by them.

"Huh! That closes the gate against the H Bar for awhile anyway," said Randy. "Most too early for a big head-rise, but that's big enough to stop them from crossing," and shaking his bridle reins, he led the way back toward the ranch.

They had almost reached the edge of the prairie at the round-up grounds, when Dolly said:

"I smell smoke! Looky how hazy it is," and then as they came out in the open: "Yonder it is! Somebody's fired the winter horse pasture. It'll burn the ranch!"

Randy's jaws set with a click, as his spurs went in and he thundered away toward the ranch house, with Dolly at his side. The men were mounting as they rode up.

"Come on, fellows!" shouted Randy. "We've got 'em in the open now. They'll have to fight. They can't get back across the river."

"Hold the deal!" roared Railroad, who had mounted his horse and had forgotten he had a heart. "They've set a trap for you if you go in there. Plenty of time to fire against that and save the house, if we have to. Wait till they make a move."

There was no long wait. Bell Holderness had come across with his forty killers. He didn't know yet that his retreat had been cut off by the high water. In his desperation he had but one thought. He was going to get Randy and old Railroad Ross.

When no one came from the ranch to fight the fire, he pushed on at the head of thirty of his men, intent on cleaning up the Railroad and burning the house. All he wanted was the land. The burned house would cover his crime. As they came out on the prairie, Randy whirled his horse and Dolly whirled with him.

"Come on, boys!" called Railroad. "They're ridin' straight into hell!" and dashed for the fray.

The battle was fought in the open this time. The hired killers had to fight or run. The Railroad riders had scores to settle and needed no urging. Four of them went from their saddle at the first crash of battle, but they were being terribly avenged. A dozen riderless horses of the invaders dashed across the prairie.

Bell's forces broke and scattered. He, with French Clauson, had been in the lead. Bullets had fairly rained around them, but they escaped. At last, seeing the battle lost, they turned and started for the bottom of the bottle, with their pursuers almost on them, for Randy and Dolly were riding with bloody spurs to overtake them.

The horse pasture was no longer burning. Instead, Bell and Clauson splashed through water almost to their saddle girths. They knew what had happened, and that retreat was cut off, but they didn't dare try to go back the other way now.

Bell knew some of his gang had gone the other way. He didn't know how many, but he cursed himself for not following them. His only hope was that his pursuers would founder in that quarter-mile morass that he had just passed.

* * * * *

They didn't founder, but came doggedly on, though the water all but swam their horses the last few paces, and a strong current was setting across the bend.

"Now," said Randy, as they gained the plateau and their horses shook the water from their coats, "we'll have it out. Remember, you promised to let me have Bell. Let's go!"

Began then a battle to the death on that narrow plateau, which was now an island and gradually growing smaller.

Old Railroad and half a dozen of his men who had not been hurt in the battle came thundering down to the edge of the water, and stopped. They could see by the trees which they knew that they'd have to swim to reach the island. Across that strip of muddy water they could see the four men on the island. They watched, spellbound, as if they were looking at a play.

They heard the roar of shots, saw the island grow smaller and smaller, as the water rose around. They saw Randy's horse go down. Saw Randy rise on his elbow and fire at Bell, who was charging down on him. Saw Bell's horse fall, and saw him retreat to the other side of the little island, as Randy regained his feet and limped after him. A few yards away Dolly and Clauson met and shot it out. Both horses and both men went down.

Clauson lay still. Dolly struggled up, took a few steps toward Randy, and fell.

The final moment had come. With his back to the swirling water that had entrapped him, Bell made his last stand. He couldn't afford to miss this time. It was his last cartridge. He fired, but fired a second too late. Randy's bullet had found his heart, and Bell Holderness slipped into the swirling flood.

As if enraged at the pollution, the water, with a mighty surge, swept over the island, washing onto Dolly, who lay on the ground. Randy splashed to where the little puncher lay, and caught him up.

"Hit bad, Dolly?" he panted.

"No. Just in the leg, but we're going to get wet. I can't make it, but you got a chance. Swim for the tree."

"I won't leave you," declared Randy, splashing waist-deep toward the old grapevine.

Watching from the other side, Railroad and his men saw him gain the vine and push Dolly to safety, then, with the water already at his shoulders, pull himself up, and help Dolly to the highest point.

"Good God! Can't we do anything?" cried Railroad. "It'll go over 'em in a few minutes!"

"These little broncs couldn't swim it," said old Con, and the others knew it was true.

"I'd give everything I got for one big horse," declared Railroad, in a frenzy of anxiety.

"There's a chance for a trade," growled Con, as a powerful yellow horse came storming through the bottom toward them. It was old Judge Tarleton's big claybank saddle horse, and Zella was bestride him. It was a vicious brute of Arabian strain, deep-chested, and powerful of limb.

"Where's Randy?" she cried, as the horse skidded to a stop.

For answer they pointed to the grapevine and the two men clinging to the top of it.

"Let one of the boys have your horse," pleaded Railroad.

If she heard him, she didn't heed. In went her spurs. Open-mouthed, the great beast reared, lunged, and went out of sight in the water until only Zella's head and shoulders could be seen. He rose and headed out into that swirling sea.

[Illustration: _The stallion rose and headed out into that swirling sea._]

Railroad Ross watched with his heart in his mouth, and choked, as he cried: "What a woman!"

* * * * *

They cheered as the great horse drifted against the up river side of the grapevine and stopped, but they couldn't hear what was being said, out there on that hopeless, swaying island, that was likely at any moment to uproot itself and float away.

"Take Dolly to a tree if you can," said Randy, grimly. "It won't make any difference about me."

"Oh, Randy!" cried Zella. "Please, please come on. There's a chance yet."

"No! We can't both go, and I won't leave Dolly."

"Go on, Randy, you damn fool!" stormed Dolly. "I don't count. Nobody'll miss me."

"No! I tell you I won't leave you!"

The big horse could just keep its head out of water and stand on the ground. Soon it would be swimming where it stood.

"Come on then, Dolly!" called the girl. "I'll take you to a tree and come back for Randy. Jump!"

Pushed by Randy, Dolly scrambled behind the saddle. At the same instant, Zella sprang out of it and landed on the grapevine.

"Go on, Dolly," she cried, "and God help you to win through."

"Zella!" Randy cried. "Don't make it any harder for me. Get back in that saddle."

"Not without you!"

"Then go on. I'll try--"

"You first. Catch a stirrup."

"No. I'll hold to the horse's tail."

"Go ahead."

He dropped into the flood, and ran his fingers into the mass of hair that floated on the water, just as Zella dropped to the saddle, and set the horse swimming toward shore. They had won about fifty feet when the watchers on the shore saw the old grapevine loose its moorings and float away.

They saw the logs and trash that swept over the spot, as a boom of drift gave way somewhere above it, but in tense silence, they watched the yellow head of that matchless horse, as he battled on with his double load. They saw the two heads above the water, as the horse submerged, all but his head, from time to time. Randy, they couldn't see, but never in all his life had Randy Ross wanted so much to live.

"God! I can't stand this!" said Sankey, as he threw off his boots, chaps, and hat. "Tie your ropes to me! I'm going in there."

Half a minute later, old Sankey pushed his mount into the water. No one there knew that it was not to save Zella and Randy that he breasted the flood on a small horse. It was to save that little blue-eyed puncher that he loved like a brother.

The watchers saw him win slowly on into the current, as they paid out the rope. Almost he had reached the trio, when the yellow horse went down. It came up, and went down again, came up, and fought feebly on.

"Don't let 'em tangle in the rope!" roared Railroad.

Sankey quit his spent pony, and with the rope in his teeth, battled for the bobbing yellow head. He gained it, and both he and the head went under, it seemed like for ages. Then Sankey floated clear and raised a hand. Railroad had hold of the rope, the yellow head was barely above the water. He felt a tug at the rope, as the gallant horse, spent to the last ounce of its strength, floated with the current.

"He made the rope fast to the bridle!" yelled Railroad. "Pull! Oh, damn you, pull!"

"Gimme the end of it," said old Con, and taking a half hitch on his saddle horn, set his horse to pulling.

A few minutes later, up to their armpits in the red water, Railroad and his men bore the rescued three to dry land. The great yellow horse scrambled out, stood for a moment quivering, and fell in his tracks, just as old Sankey gained the shore a hundred yards below them.

* * * * *

It was late in the afternoon of the same day. The big yellow horse had revived, and had been taken to the Railroad pens, where he stood, gaunt and drawn, eating a light feed.

"He'll pull through now," opined Con, whose knowledge of horses was unquestioned.

"I hope he does," said Railroad. "He's worth about a million."

* * * * *

On the gallery of the old ranch house, where they had been together since they had reached the house and changed to dry clothing, sat Randy and Zella. Neither of them had spoken for a long time.

"How did you ever happen to be in the bend, and riding that horse?" asked Randy.

"Why, I--Some people don't believe it, but when a woman loves a man as I have loved you, she knows when he is in danger. Lav and Cliff went away this morning, to hunt for Bell, they said. Pompey went off somewhere, and there was no one about the place. I got the feeling that you were in danger. It grew into a fear that Bell would talk Lav and Cliff into coming here to kill you. I decided to come and warn you. When I got to the barn there was no horse except father's big saddle horse, that no one but himself ever tried to handle. I don't know how I managed to put saddle and bridle on it, for it bit at me, and snorted terribly. I fought it, and mounted it, then I came like the wind over the prairie road.

"As I came into the bottom, I met two men who seemed to be flying for their lives. They checked, and one of them called: 'Don't go in there, lady. Hell's raging down there,' and they went storming on. If it was hell, and you were there, it was where I wanted to be, so I came on, and--you know the rest."

"Yes, I know the rest, Zella, up to now; and I'll do my best to make the rest more happy for you from now on. I'll never give you up again," and he took her in his arms.

* * * * *

Out at the bunkshack, little Dolly was lying on a bunk, the doctor having dressed his wounds, along with those of several punchers who had been hurt in that first mad charge.

"What became of Turk and Bud?" he asked.

"Old man turned 'em loose," replied Sankey, who sat beside him. "Said Zella had proved what he wanted to prove by them, and that was that Zella and Randy would marry."

"Fine! Bully! I told you Randy was a thoroughbred, and all he needed was a little bustin'!"

"Yes," drawled Sankey, "but it took a woman to bust him. Lay down there and behave yourself. Randy has got him a side-partner now, and I'll need you as soon as you're able to ride."

"Workin' on the Railroad, workin' life away, Workin' on the Railroad, for mighty little pay!"

"Shut up, Dolly, you make my head ache, and besides that you'll burst something, and start bleeding again."

THE END.