Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/174

156 got after him straight. We've got the best of him so often he grew careful. They were to ambush us and then cut through the gap to Pioche and the raihoad. Pedro will go through to Calexico."

"Maybe. Or maybe he'll wait for Hollister to show. He'll gamble all he's got away in Spigotty Town, outside Pioche, and look to Hollister for a fresh stake. I wonder did that hombre I touched up pack a canteen? Will you shoot the roan while I'm gone? I ain't got the heart."

Jackson walked over carefully towards the chayas, the rifle discarded, a precautionary gun in his right hand. He found a way between the cacti and disappeared. Sheridan put his own pistol to the roan's head and sent it out of misery. The mare stood by shuddering, sniffing the taint of blood on the air, as Sheridan took off saddle and bridle from the dead horse.

Jackson came back with the strap of a canteen over his shoulder, a pint flask partly full of a yellowish liquid in his hand. He had put away his gun.

"They been nestin' in there, waitin' for us to happen along," he said. "I got that Greaser plumb through the heart. Luck-shot. That's the second man I ever killed," he went on quietly. "Both of 'em took a first shot at me. That hombre had his mouth smashed to a pulp an' all swollen up. His teeth was knocked out. I wouldn't wonder but that was the one that roped Thora.

"There won't be enough of him left by the time we come back to hold an inquest on. See that?"

He jerked up his head. High in the sky a dark