CHAPTER V.

AMBUSH.

Somebody had been watching Randy and Dolly from a safe place, as they rode across the prairie, but he hadn't watched long enough. The spy didn't see Cub and Shorty, and he didn't see Sank and Con, who were riding down another draw, and coming into Silver Bend a quarter of a mile east of where the trail went down the hill.

Randy led down the trail. His mind was in turmoil. The Railroad and its troubles were of course, the main problem; but what was making those troubles? Was it possible that Bell Holderness had started all this death and destruction in order to get him out of the way? Not likely. If Bell wanted him killed, it would be easy enough to have had some of the Holderness gang pot him from the brush long ago. Zella might be one of the pawns in the game, but certainly not the only one, perhaps not the main one. What was it all about? The only answer he got was the crack of a gun and a whistling bullet that narrowly missed him.

They were well down into the open timber of the bend by this time. The shot had come from his left. Randy didn't look to see where the others of his party were, though he knew that Dolly was a little way behind him.

He whirled his horse into the woods as he drew his gun. He had gone berserk. The blood of a hundred pioneer ancestors was burning in his veins, and all thought of fear or caution was forgotten. His only thought was to mix smoke with the man who had shot at him.

He glimpsed two riders in the woods and opened on them. They returned his fire for a moment. Bullets whistled and leaves and twigs fell around Randy, but he pushed on. Into the mêlée came Dolly, and close behind him Cub and Shorty. Still the attackers stood their ground. There must be quite a party of them. It was growing dusky in the woods. Apparently, no hits were scored on either side. Con and Sank heard the shots and came hurrying on. It sounded like a major battle going on as they came up.

"Come on, fellers!" called Randy. "Let's take 'em," and he spurred straight for the group of trees behind which the enemy had taken shelter. Dolly went with him. Con and Sank sought the flank on one side, while Cub and Shorty took the other.

This was something more than members of the Holderness gang cared to face. They had thought they were going to surprise Randy and the little puncher. Instead, they had jumped six men, none of whom was frightened about being surprised.

The Holderness outfit still had an even break, for there were six of them, but they were not seeking an even break. They gave back for a better position, and made a mistake. Bullets flew among them in spite of the gathering dusk, as they crossed an open glade, going toward the river on the west side of the bend. One pitched from his horse. Panic-stricken, the others fled.

"Crowd 'em, fellers!" yelled Randy. "Get 'em as they cross the river at the old ford."

On through the timber they tore, running into thickets of mustang grape and bamboo, halting to get the sound of hoofs, then on again. Finally, they came out on the river bank, just as five horsemen rode out on the bar on the other side.

Two carbines cracked. One was Dolly's and the other was in the hands of Shorty, whose big mouth spread in a wide grin. He had jerked the gun from Sank's saddle. They saw one man fall, and another grip his saddle horn and lean over, as he plunged into the brush on the other side. Dolly had got a man, so that made three down and one crippled, out of six--and not one of the Railroad men had a scratch, except from briers.

"What the hell did you grab my carbine for?" growled Sank, as silence followed the fusillade of shots.

"Why, Cub and me didn't have any guns."

"No guns! What did you come along for?"

"Just company, I reckon," grinned Shorty. "Anyway, I got one and crippled another so the dogs can ketch him."

* * * * *

Shorty was the most uncompromising fighter in the Railroad outfit. He always grinned, whichever way the fight was going. He had grinned when Bell Holderness and Lav Tarleton took his gun--grinned because he knew they were making a mistake by not killing him. He meant to kill Bell Holderness and grin at him as he died.

"Well, we'd better stay on this side," said Randy. "The woods are likely to be full of 'em on the other side of the river."

"Apt to be plenty more on this side," said Sankey. "We better--"

"There goes one! Gimme back that gun!" yelled Shorty, as a horseman sprang out of a thicket and headed back up the river trail toward the narrows.

"Don't shoot!" called Randy. "Let's take him alive and make him talk. Come on, Dolly."

Up the trail they thundered in pursuit. It was half a mile to the spot where Randy's horse had been shot from under him earlier in the day. It was a dangerous spot, but they paid no attention to that.

The fleeing horseman didn't have a chance. He was poorly mounted and a poor rider. He didn't try to shoot, but seemed to have his whole soul centered on going away from where he was to somewhere else. As they caught up to him, Randy went on one side and Dolly on the other. Randy reached out, caught the back of his collar, and fairly lifted him from his saddle.

"Oh, Lawd, he done got me now!" moaned the prisoner, as Randy dropped him on the ground and dismounted.

"Pompey, what the devil are you doing in here, this time of day?" demanded Randy. "Don't you know this bend is full of killers?"

"Y-y-y-yassir, yassir, I know it now, Mistuh Randy, but--oh, Lawd, help me! Please, Mistuh Randy, don't you 'member that night I help you on yo' horse out at the mouth of the avenoo, when you--when yo' horse wouldn't stand still? Oh, Lawdy, save me now!"

"Shut up, fool!" snapped Randy, shaking the frightened negro boy as if he were a bundle of rags, which in fact he was. "Catch his pony, Dolly, and let's get away from this place."

They put Pompey on his pony, and all rode back into the bend. Out in the round-up prairie, where no one could slip up on them, they stopped. It was growing dark, but Pompey's eyes and teeth showed white in his shiny black face. That face was mostly eyes and teeth anyway.

He was a skinny little fellow, and perhaps the most skillful and adroit liar on the Tarleton plantation, but he never lied when he was scared, and he was frightened within one inch of his life now. He had been caught fairly in the middle of the battle, as it swept on toward the river, and had run into a thicket like a rabbit. Then, as things quieted down, he had tried to run out of trouble, and here he was.

"Which way did you come in here?" asked Randy.

"I--I come down the river trail, Mistuh Randy."

"Didn't you know it was dangerous on that trail?"

"Nossir, I didn't, but I does now. Oh, Lawdy! Miss Zella, she didn't say nothin' about dat to me. O-o-o, Lawd, save a poor nigger--"

"Shut up! What did Miss Zella have to do with it?"

"Why--she have everything they is to do with it," returned Pompey, quieting down a bit, but still shaking with fright. "She sont me--sont me--to--to bring this here to you," and suddenly remembering his errand, he pulled a note from somewhere among his rags and handed it to Randy.

"Hum! It's too dark to see to read it, and we can't make a light here. Too good a target. Keep him here until I get back, boys. If he tries to get away, shoot his liver out," and smiling at Pompey's fright, Randy mounted, and rode on toward the ranch house alone.

* * * * *

As he galloped that half mile, with the note in his hand, Randy thought of many things. Life seemed dark and forbidding before him, but one ray of light shone out of the darkness. Zella was still true to him. She still cared enough for him to send him a note, dangerous as it was to send it, and despite the trouble it might make for her if her father and brothers learned by any chance that she was communicating with him.

He wondered now why he hadn't been man enough to cut out his wild behavior and claim Zella as his own, long ago. That couldn't be helped now, but she should never have cause to think he was wild and irresponsible again. When this mess was over--

He dismounted and hurried to his room, the big room that had been occupied together by the three brothers, from their childhood. The grim, silent, thoughtful Asa, of whom he had always been a little afraid, was not in his familiar seat in the chimney corner. The gentle, kindly Peyton was not by the table with his book.

There was no light in the room. Randy struck a match and lit the lamp on the table. Pate's book still lay there. He glanced at the mantel and saw Asa's pipe and tobacco box. Loneliness gripped him like an icy hand. He tore open the note, and with changing countenance, read:

DEAR RANDY:

I call you that from long habit. I can't remember when I didn't call you that, but now, all is done. I am writing this saddest note of my life, for the sake of that past. I tried hard to believe you were not guilty of the thing my brothers charged you with. There was doubt about you having anything to do with Ben's death, and I clung to that doubt, oh, how I clung to it!

But when my father came home, shot in the back and dangerously hurt, from ambush; when he told me he saw you and knew that you and some of your men followed him and shot him, there could be no longer any doubt. My love for you has caused me much sorrow. I have often told you that some day you would commit a crime in one of your wild escapades, but I never thought it would be such a direct stab at my heart as this has been.

I'm writing this because I feel that your death and the death of your father could not bring back my dead brother and heal the wound of my father. My brothers and the Holderness brothers have sworn to kill you and your father.

I don't want to see you killed. There are many other places in the world where you could live out your life. Go while you can and hide yourself from the certain death that awaits you here. There have been many sad moments in the years that I have loved you, but the saddest is now, when I say--good-by.

ZELLA.

Randy sprang to his feet, and crushed the note in his hand. That ray of light that he thought he saw was further gloom. He paced the old oak floor in rage.

"The death of me and my father won't bring back her brother, and heal her father's wound," he grated. "No, and what about my two brothers and three loyal, trusted men who were willing to fight my battles? What will bring them back? Go while the going is good, will I? If she thinks I could shoot an innocent man in the back, she never knew me. If she thinks I'm yellow enough to run away from this fight, she knows me still less!"

He sat down to the table and wrote:

MISS TARLETON:

I have your note, and thank you for any good intentions it may have contained, but they are wasted. I have never shot a man in the back, and never shall, unless he commits an assault on me, and then runs, as has happened more than once since this trouble. I can't understand the purpose of your note. If it was to get information as to my purpose, you shall have it. Silver Bend and the Railroad Ranch is my home, and I mean to stay here.

Until now, I have shrunk from the thought of a clash with your brothers. Now, since you tell me that they have allied themselves with my enemies, I shall welcome the day when we meet. You say my death will not bring back your brother. You didn't mention anything that would bring back my two brothers. They were both murdered, if not by your brothers, at least by their allies, and, I take it, with their sanction. I mean that some one shall atone for the death of my brothers. If anything in this note will bring comfort to my enemies, they are welcome so to construe it.

RANDOLPH ROSS.

Randy folded the note, put it in an envelope, and placed it in his pocket. He struck a match, set fire to Zella's note, and dropped it in the back of the old fireplace. He watched it burn. Thus ended his hope of happiness with the only woman he'd ever love.

* * * * *

He stole out, mounted his horse, and rode back to where he had left his men with Pompey. He didn't want his father to know about these notes; this was his personal affair. When he got back to the men, he said:

"Boys, I don't want it known that I got that note. Go on to the house and eat. Take the mail in, Shorty, but don't say anything about what happened up at town to-day, unless dad questions you. There may be a lot more to tell when I get back, and--"

"When you get back! Where are you going?" asked Dolly.

"Just now, I'm going to take Pompey up to the top of the hill and send him home by the prairie road. He'd get killed before he got halfway through the narrows. You boys go on and eat. Anything I'd eat would poison me the way I feel now."

"I'm not hungry, either," declared Dolly. "I'll go with you. One lone man ain't got much business prowling the bend right now."

Randy said nothing, but he felt much. This little blue-eyed puncher was beginning to mean a great deal to him. Pompey got on his pony and was given the note. Escorted by Randy and Dolly, he took the trail that led out to the prairie. Out on the prairie they stopped.

"Here, Pompey," said Randy, and gave the boy a silver dollar.

"Thanky, suh, Mist' Randy. You're the onliest one that ever did give me a whole, borned dollar at one time, 'ceptin' Mist' Ben, and he won't never give me no more."

"No, and that's likely to be the last one I'll ever give you. Now, listen to me. Keep your eyes open. If you see anybody on the prairie, don't let 'em come to you. When you hit the bottom, ride that pony."

"Yas, suh, boss! When I hits dat dark ole bottom, I'm gwine make this old pestletail bronc think the ha'nts is ridin' him!"

"Well, go on."

"But, er, Mist' Randy--"

"What is it?"

"If you ever needs me, you knows whar I is. You 'bout the onliest white man I got left since Mist' Ben is gone."

"All right. If I ever need you I'll call for you. If you deliver that note to anybody but Miss Zella, I'm likely to call for you pretty soon and bring a rope."

"Oh, Lawdy, Mist' Randy! Don't talk that way, and me got to go thoo that ole dark bottom. I ain't heavy enough to break my own neck, if you did hang me. Come on here, pony, we's got to travel."

Pompey rode away into the night. Randy and the little puncher sat silently listening until the hoof beats died out.

Randy made no move to turn back toward the ranch. Dolly sat his horse in silence. Great stories are told of ancient knights and their loyal squires. Never was there a greater knight than Randy Ross was at that moment, nor was there ever a more loyal squire than Dolly.

He had been watching Randy all the year he had been at the Railroad. He had envied that stalwart height, the broad shoulders, and perfect form. He had envied Randy's education. Perhaps he had envied most of all the ease with which Randy could jerk his gun on a running horse and kill a leaping jack rabbit.

He had envied him all this, watching the devil-may-care Randy in the days before he got "busted," as Dolly called it. Since that night, when Randy had reacted so wonderfully to the acid test, and had come out of it so much a man, Dolly's envy had turned to a sort of worship. He was ready to follow Randy anywhere, no matter how wild the adventure, or how slim the chances of coming out of it alive.

* * * * *

"Dolly," said Randy at last, "I don't suppose my private affairs would interest you. Maybe you didn't even know that I had expected to marry Zella Tarleton."

"Sankey told me something about it that evening we found you at the Cottonwood saloon. We saw her, and--It was sorty for her that I talked to you like I did."

"Then I have to thank her for a service, if she caused you to make a man of the sorry thing I was then."

"I didn't make a man of you," disclaimed Dolly. "I knew you was a thoroughbred all the time. I--I just sorty rode you and quieted you some, and then you done the rest yourself."

"All right, I'll thank you for the riding, but let that all go. I won't forget it. What I'm going to tell you is that everything between Zella and me is over. She told me in that note that she believed I shot her father in the back. When a woman can believe a thing like that of a man, it's time for things to be over. I'm just telling you that, so you'll understand something else I'm going to tell you."

"But maybe she ain't had a square deal, Randy. Maybe somebody has stacked the deck on her. She don't look to me like a girl that would deal from the bottom of the deck on a fellow."

"Oh, yes, she does understand. She advised me to run. To get out of this mess while the going was good. To play the part of the yellow pup that I used to be."

"No!"

"Yes. But, Dolly, I won't do it. If she had thrown me cold a week ago I might have gone to the devil. I may go anyhow, but not the way I would have gone then. She was all there was in the world to keep me half straight then. There's something else to keep me straight now."

Randy stopped, raised a gauntleted hand to the starry heaven, and went on: "If God lets me live, I'll avenge my two brothers and the loyal men who fell fighting for the Railroad, regardless of whom it may hurt. I held back from tangling with the Tarleton boys. I kept my temper when the old judge talked to dad like he was a dog; all on account of Zella. She has freed me from any obligations. From here on the Tarletons and Holdernesses look alike to me. Let's go."

They turned back down the steep trail that led into Silver Bend and the Railroad ranch. Dolly said nothing, but he was puzzled. Well, he knew Randy hadn't shot the old judge, and was pretty sure he didn't kill Ben. Randy was getting a dirty deal, and he was for him, no matter what he might do from here on.