Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/43

Rh leaped the corpse of his brother and galloped to his mistress. It required but a moment for her to remount, and when she reached the top of the narrow cañon she turned to look behind her. The little gulch was filled with a stream of horsemen, and at the head of the column rode her father, followed by the mounted guard from the penitentiary. From the mouth of the gulch a straggling and broken line of horsemen reached down to the stage road, and the stage road was lined with wagons and boys on burros, while out of the town and over the valley men and women swarmed like ants.

"It's awful for you to have to die for me," said the messenger, as the two men leaned upon their elbows and looked at each other. His shirt was pasted to his shoulder. His shoe being filled up, the blood was now oozing out between the lacings.

"It is not awful," said the dark man, rubbing the ends of his fingers over the wound in his breast. "It's a useful ending of a wasted life. I never dreamed that I should die so nearly satisfied. And such sport! Why, that fight between you and the—and Huerfano Bill, as