“The chief is talkin’ fast and hard.  The young feller shakes his head.  Drew begins talkin’ again.  You’d think he was pleadin’ for his life in front of a jury that meant him wrong.  His hands go out like he was makin’ an election speech.  He holds one hand down like he was measurin’ the height of a kid.  He throws up his arms again like he’d lost everything in the world.

“And now Bard has dropped the hand from his face.  He looks sort of interested.  He steps closer to the grave again.  Drew holds out both his arms.  By God, boys, he’s pleadin’ with Bard.

“And the head of Bard is dropped.  How’s it goin’ to turn out?  Drew wins, of course.  There goes Bard’s hand out as if it was pulled ag’in’ his will.  Drew catches it in both his own.  Boys, here’s where we grab our hosses and beat it.”

He turned from the rocks in haste.

“What d’you mean?” cried Conklin.  “Steve, are you goin’ to leave us here to finish the job you started?”

“Finish it?  You fools!  Don’t you see that Drew and Bard is pals now?  If we couldn’t finish Bard alone, how’d we make out ag’in’ the two of them?  The game’s up, boys; the thing that’s left is for us to save our hides—­if we can—­before them two start after us.  If they do start, then God help us all!”

He was already in the saddle.

“Wait!” called Conklin.  “One of ’em’s a tenderfoot.  The other has left his gun here.  What we got to fear from ’em?”

And Nash snarled in return:  “If there was a chance, don’t you think I’d take it?  Don’t you see I’m givin’ up everythin’ that amounts to a damn with me?  Tenderfoot?  He may act Eastern and he may talk Eastern, but he’s got Western blood.  There ain’t no other way of explainin’ it.  And Drew?  He didn’t have no gun when he busted the back of old Piotto.  I say, there’s two men, armed or not, and between ’em they can do more’n all of us could dream of.  Boys, are you comin’?”

They went.  The wounded were dragged to their feet and hoisted to their horses, groaning.  At a slow walk they started down through the trees.  Evening fell; the shadows slanted about them.  They moved faster—­at a trot—­at a gallop.  They were like men flying from a certain ruin.  Beyond the margin of the bright lake they fled and lost themselves in the vast, secret heart of the mountain-desert.

CHAPTER XLI

SALLY WEEPS

All that day, in a silence broken only by murmurs and side glances, Anthony and Sally Fortune moved about the old house from window to window, and from crack to crack, keeping a steady eye on the commanding rocks above.  In one of those murmurs they made their resolution.  When night came they would rush the rocks, storm them from the front, and take their chance with what might follow.  But the night promised to give but little shelter to their stalking.

For in the late afternoon a broad moon was already climbing up from the east; the sky was cloudless; there was a threat of keen, revealing moonshine for the night.  Only desperation could make them attempt to storm the rock, but by the next morning, at the latest, reinforcements were sure to come, and then their fight would be utterly hopeless.